Horn v. Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co.

88 F.2d 64, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3035
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 16, 1937
DocketNo. 8246
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 88 F.2d 64 (Horn v. Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Horn v. Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co., 88 F.2d 64, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3035 (9th Cir. 1937).

Opinions

WILBUR, Circuit Judge.

Ross Island Sand & Gravel Company filed a petition for reorganization under 77B of the Bankruptcy Act (11 U.S.C.A. § 207), wherein it claimed assets amounting to $2,880,022.17, and liabilities for the same amount, including $2,031,671.46 of liabilities to preferred and common stockholders. The principal liabilities, other than the capital liabilities, consisted of current indebtedness, amounting to $262,260.28, and a bonded debt of $488,100 secured by a trust deed. For convenience, the properties covered by the trust deed are divided into five parcels. Parcels 1, 2, and 3 consist of four hundred acres of land in and near the city of Portland, Or., -valuable for its sand and gravel content. Parcel 4 consists of the buildings, tools, etc., used in and upon said land in the conduct of the business of the petitioner in producing and selling its sand and gravel. Parcel 5 consists of certain shares of stock in the Beaver Portland Cement Company which owned .and operated a cement plant near Gold Hill, Or., and the entire capital stock of the Oregon Gravel Company which owns and conducts a sand and gravel business near Salem, Or. The stock of the Beaver Portland Cement Company above mentioned was sold, during progress of the proceeding, for $175,000 cash, with an agreement on the part of the debtor to pay from its unmortgaged estate [65]*65certain fees in the proceeding amounting to about $15,000. The purchase price was paid to the trustee in the proceeding to be held and disposed of in lieu of the property sold. A plan of reorganization was proposed by which the proceeds of the sale of Beaver Portland Cement Company stock were to be distributed pro rata to the bondholders and the balance of the properties consisting of parcels 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the stock of the Oregon Gravel Company were to be turned over to the debtor, Ross Island Sand & Gravel Company. This plan was approved by 75% per cent, of the bondholders, 100 per cent, by the unsecured creditors, 72.85 per cent, of the preferred stockholders, and 80.24 per cent, of the common stockholders. Appellant, one of the bondholders, holding bonds of $2,000 par value out of $488,100 bonds secured by the trust deed, objected to the proposed plan of reorganization but his objections were overruled, and the court made an order approving the proposed plan which gave to the debtor the four parcels of property and the stock of the Oregon Gravel Company free and clear of all claims on the part of the holders of the above-described bonds but subject to a lien for taxes amounting to $76,835.15. This appeal is taken by the bondholders from the order approving the plan of reorganization.

Appellant claims that the order violates his constitutional rights, and also violates the provisions of 77B of the Bankruptcy Act in that the plan is unfair and inequitable.

The appellee concedes that if there is nothing more to the case than we have stated there would be little merit in the plan of reorganization. Appellee, however, claims that there are other factors which call for a different conclusion. Stated in the brief, these facts are that the officers of the debtor corporation acted with the bondholders’ committee in an effort to secure a purchaser for some of the assets of the corporation, and this effort resulted in securing a purchaser for the stock of the Beaver Portland Cement Company for $175,000 net; that because of the extraordinary efforts put forth by the officers of the corporation and the members of the bondholders’ committee, who co-operated with said officers, cash amounting to nearly four times what might reasonably have been expected for the entire property of the corporation had been thus received. It further appears from the record that in an agreement of April 9, 1936 between the bondholders’ committee, the debtor, and the trustee named in the trust deed, it was provided that the debtor should file a reorganization plan providing that the $175,000 to be received for the sale of the stock of the Beaver Portland Cement Company should be paid and distributed to the bondholders of the debtor after deducting certain expenses fór the trustee, the committee, and their attorneys and agents; and that “all mortgaged assets, other than said Beaver Portland Cement Company stock, shall be released from the lien of said bond issue and be owned by Ross Island Sand and Gravel Company free and clear and in full satisfaction of the claims of bondholders thereof.” In the agreement it was also provided that “the Debtor and Committee hereby agree to support and at all times to vote for the plan described * * *, and the Trustee agrees not to object to said plan.” The agreement further provided, however, that “the agreement in this paragraph (4) [that the debtor and Committee would agree to vote for the plan and the trustee would not object to it] contained, on the part of the Committee and Trustee, is made not by way of waiver of claim to any mortgaged assets, but by reason of the settled conviction of the trustee and Committee, after due consideration, that said plan constitutes the best and most feasible method of procuring the highest amount possible from all of the mortgaged assets.” It is conceded by appellee that the bondholders’ committee had no power to guarantee that the remaining assets would be turned back to the debtor. The question before us is whether or not the dissenting bondholder, whose interest -in the lien upon the other property of the debtor has been surrendered to the debtor by the approved plan of reorganization without any consideration moving to him other than his pro rata interest in the cash received for the sale of the stock of the Beaver Portland Cement Company, is bound thereby.

The Supreme Court in Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U.S. 555, 55 S.Ct. 854, 79 L.Ed. 1593, 97 A.L.R. 1106, held that the bankruptcy power is subject to the Fifth Amendment and that under the bankruptcy power, Congress cannot authorize the bankruptcy court to take for the benefit of the debtor rights in specific property acquired by the creditor. In Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles v. Rindge Land & Navigation Company, 85 F.(2d) 557, 561, we said: “There is nothing in section 77B which authorizes a debt- [66]*66or to pay a secured creditor less than half the amount of the debt while retaining to its own use a portion of the property securing the debt. The right to retain a lien until the debt secured thereby is paid is a substantive property right which may not be taken from the creditor consistently with the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U.S. 555, 594, 55 S.Ct. 854, 79 L.Ed. 1593, 97 A.L.R. 1106.”

It is clear that as to appellant, the order approving the proposed plan of reorganization which gave the debtor the property securing the trust deed (aside from the stock of the Beaver Portland Cement Company) is erroneous and that appellant has a right to retain the lien of the trust deed as against this property. We need not inquire whether there can be circumstances ■under which the consent of two-thirds of the bondholders would be binding upon the other third. The statute so provides. See a decision by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, In re 333 North Michigan Ave. Bldg. Corp., 84 F.(2d) 936.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
88 F.2d 64, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3035, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/horn-v-ross-island-sand-gravel-co-ca9-1937.