Illinois Trust & Savings Bank v. Seattle Electric Railway & Power Co.

82 F. 936, 27 C.C.A. 268, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2014
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedOctober 19, 1897
DocketNo. 368
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 82 F. 936 (Illinois Trust & Savings Bank v. Seattle Electric Railway & Power 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
Illinois Trust & Savings Bank v. Seattle Electric Railway & Power Co., 82 F. 936, 27 C.C.A. 268, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2014 (9th Cir. 1897).

Opinion

MORROW, Circuit Judge.

The appellant brought suit in the circuit court for the district of Washington on December 31, 1894, against the Seattle Electric Railway & Power Company, the Seattle Consolidated Street-Railway Company, the Central Trust Company of the City of New York, and a number of other defendants, to foreclose a mortgage or deed of trust executed by the first-named defendant on March 15,1890, in favor of the appellant, to secure the payment of the principal and interest of $400,000 of bonds, of which amount bonds aggregating the sum of $381,000 were issued. Among the parties made defendants were Annie Sears and Frank Sears, her husband. It is alleged in the bill that these defendants were judgment creditors or claimants of a lien upon a judgment for the sum of $16,000 in their favor in the state court of Washington, but that no lien had been acquired in their favor upon any of the mortgaged property, except by the entry and docketing of the judgment on June 16,1893, in the execution docket in the office of the clerk of the superior court of King county, Wash. The bill sets forth a judgment in favor of these defendants in the superior court of King county, dated March 29, 1892, and a judgment by way of affirmance in the supreme court of the state, dated June 16, 1893, and a final judgment of affirmance in the supreme court of the state for $16,000, rendered November 20,1893, as of date June 16,1893. It is also averred that William H. Thompson, Eduard P. Edsen, and John E. Humphries, as co-partners under the. style of Thompson, Edsen & Humphries, and George E. M. Pratt and William H. White, as co-partners under the style of Pratt & White, claim certain attorneys’ liens on this last-named judgment, and that J. B. Maxon also claims a lien on the judgment by way of an assignment. At the time this bill was filed in the circuit court, on December 31, 1894, the property of the Seattle* Consolidated Street-Railway Company, as the corporate successor of the Seattle Electric Railway & Power Company, was in the hands of M. F. Backus, a receiver appointed by the circuit court in two cases, — one brought by A. P. Fuller against the Seattle Consolidated Street-Railway Company, commenced [938]*938June 14, 1S93, in which the receiver was appointed on the same day,, and two days prior to the entry of the Bears judgment in the supreme court of the state, and the other brought by the same plaintiff against the same company and the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, trustee, and the Central Trust Company of New York, commenced October 17, 1893. By an order of court entered June 6,1895, all three cases were consolidated under the administration of the receiver appointed in the first case.

Prom the answers of the defendants Prank and Annie Sears, and the other parties claiming interests in the Sears judgment, it appears that on the Kith day of September, 1891, while Annie Sears was a passenger upon one of the street cars operated by the Seattle Consolidated Street-Railway Company, the corporate successor of the Seattle Electric Railway & Power Company, the car in which Mrs. Sears was riding ran off the track, and she was seriously and permanently injured; that thereafter she and her husband brought suit in the superior court of King county, Wash., against the company, to recover damages for the injury; that on the 29th day of March, 1892, they recovered a judgment for $15,000 and costs of suit; that the company appealed the case to the supreme court of the state, and in order to stay proceedings, and for a supersedeas, filed a supersedeas bond, in the sum of $16,000, with E. C. Kilbourne, Leilla S. Kilbourne, L. H. Griffith, Toney W. Griffith, V. Hugo Smith, Margaret Smith, J. S. Porter, and Helen Porter as sureties; that on the 18th day of November, 1893, the judgment was affirmed by the supreme court of the state, and a judgment rendered on the supersedeas bond against the principal and sureties in the sum of $16,000. It is alleged in the answer that at the time Mrs. Sears recovered her judgment in the superior court of King county, and thereafter, while the judgment was superseded upon the appeal thereon, the street-railway company was in receipt of an income from its railway lines of about $15,000 per month; that such receipts were used in payment of operating expenses and interest on the indebtedness of the company, including- the mortgage indebtedness to the complainant; that the amount so received by the company over and above the amount of the operating expenses was more than enough to have .satisfied the Sears’ judgment, with interest; and that the company, while the supersedeas was in force, wrongfully appropriated the income to the payment of interest on the mortgage indebtedness and ■other indebtednesses, instead of paying off the judgment. It is also alleged in the answer, in support of the priority of this judgment over the mortgage lien, that the trust deed and mortgage mentioned in the bill of complaint did not contain the affidavit provided for chattel mortgages in the state of Washington,' to the effect that the mortgage was made in good faith, and without any design to hinder and delay or defraud creditors. The answer prayed for an accounting, and that out of the diversion of the company’s income the claim and judgment in favor of Frank and Annie Sears be first paid. To this answer a .general replication was filed. Among the intervening petitions for preferential claims filed in the case is one by E. O. Kilbourne and Leilla S. Kilbourne, sureties on the supersedeas bond given in the state court to stay proceedings on the Sears judgment, filed in the cir[939]*939cuit court December 19, 1895. This petilion prays that the amount of the judgment, together with interest and costs, in favor of Frank and Annie Sears, be paid off and satisfied, to the end that the peti tioners might be relieved from the said judgment.

The appellant, the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, filed its answer to this petition, setting forth the income and disbursements of the corporation in detail. The answer prayed for a dismissal of the petition, and for costs against the petitioners. Yo reply to this answer was filed. Yo proofs were made, and the hearing wTas had upon the petition in intervention, the answers thereto, the bill of com.plaint in the cause, and the various orders and proceedings therein. The court below on January 18, 1890, entered an order and decree upon this petilion; allowing the claim of the petitioners as preferred, and directing it to be paid by the receiver out of the funds of the receivership and proceeds of the property of the Seattle Consolidated Street-Railway Company next after the payment of an issue of receiver’s certificates amounting to $80,000, for repairs, etc., ,and prior t:o the indebtedness of the company secured by the mortgage of the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, and to the Central Trust Company of the City of Yew York. It was further ordered that the.receiver issue and deliver receiver’s certificates to the various parties interested in the Sears judgment for the amounts of their respective interests, and that the receive]* should pay and take up said certificates, when he should come into the possession of funds properly applicable thereto, out of the proceeds of the sale of the property of the Seattle Consolidated Street-Railway Company, or otherwise, arid when he should be directed so to pay and take up said certificates by the further order or decree of the court. From this order and decree an appeal was taken to this court.

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Related

Washington Trust Co. v. Dunaway
169 F. 37 (Ninth Circuit, 1909)

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Bluebook (online)
82 F. 936, 27 C.C.A. 268, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2014, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/illinois-trust-savings-bank-v-seattle-electric-railway-power-co-ca9-1897.