In re Graves

29 F. 60, 1886 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Iowa
DecidedNovember 16, 1886
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 29 F. 60 (In re Graves) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Graves, 29 F. 60, 1886 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168 (N.D. Iowa 1886).

Opinion

Shiras, J.

The question presented for determination arises upon the following facts:

On the thirtieth day of March, 1882, a limited partnership was organized under the laws of the state of Illinois, in which William A. Boies, B. B. Fay, and L. W. Conkey, residents of Chicago, were general partners, and J. K. Graves, a resident of Dubuque, Iowa, was special partner. The firm becoming insolvent, judgments wore confessed in January, 1888, in favor of various parties, aggregating, in all, some $200,000; the same being entered in the federal and state courts of Illinois, and executions thereon were issued and levied on the property of the firm, and, upon the sale thereof, the proceeds were paid to the plaintiffs in execution.

On the fifteenth day of March, 1888, one Chester C. Corbin, a creditor of the firm, filed a bill in equity in the nature of a creditors’ bill, in the United States circuit court for the Northern district of Illinois, to which the members of the firm, and the several parties in whose favor judgments had been entered by confession, were made parties defendant. To this bill the special partner, Graves, entered his appearance, and filed an answer; and upon the hearing the court found and adjudged that the entering the confessions of judgment in favor of Graves and others was a fraud upon the creditors; and that two certain creditors’ bills, filed by the Commercial National Bank of Dubuque and Bay State Sugar Defining Company, were filed in fraud of the rights of creditors; and that, by means of such proceedings, the said Graves had obtained control over, and had disposed of, for his own use and benefit, the sum of $100,796.71, which in fact was a trust sum in his hands, and which should 'have been paid to the creditors of said firm,—the said amount being reached by adding together the sums paid to said Graves, to the Commercial Bank, the Dubuque County Bank, and the Importers’ & Traders’ National Bank; and thereupon it was ordered that said Graves pay to the clerk of said United States circuit court, in 80 days, the said amount above named, to bo applied in payment of the amounts due creditors, under the further decree of the court. The sum so ordered to be paid not being paid to the clerk, on the twenty-ninth of December, 1885, an execution, in due form, was issued to the marshal of said Northern district of Illinois, against the property of said Graves, which was returned by the marshal unsatisfied; and on the sixth day of May, 1886, an alias execution was issued to the marshal, who returned thereon that he had served the same by reading same to the said Graves, and demanding the surrender of sufficient property to satisfy said writ, and also the surrender of such property as he had or owned, not exempt from execution, and that said Graves refused to pay said execution, in whole or in part, or to surrender any property whatever.

[62]*62On the twenty-sixth of October, 1886, an order was entered in the canse requiring the defendant Graves to personally appear before the court on Saturday, October 30,1886, and show cause why he should not be attached for contempt for failing and refusing to obey the order and decree of the court entered November 17, 1885; being the order for the payment into court of the sum of $100,796.71. A copy of this order was served upon Graves at his residence, in Dubuque, Iowa, by one W. J. Cantillon, a resident of Iowa, on the twenty-seventh of October, 1886. He did not appear in the court at Chicago, and on the first of November, 1886, the following order was entered in said United States circuit court, at Chicago:

“And it also appearing that said motion to appear and show cause on said last-named day was continued until Monday, November 1, 1886, when said Graves failed to appear in obedience to said order, notwithstanding said order to show cause had been personally served on him, the said Julius K. Graves; and said motion now coming on for hearing, and the court being satisfied that the said Graves has deliberately and willfully violated the decree entered herein on the seventeenth day of November, 1885, by failing and refusing to pay to the clerk of this court the sum therein ordered to be paid by him, or any part thereof,—it is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the said Julius K. Graves is guilty of contempt of the authority of this court by said willful failure and refusal as aforesaid, and that an attachment do now issue, in due form, for the arrest forthwith of the said Julius K. Graves, directed to the marshal for the Northern district of Illinois; and that, when arrested by said marshal, he be committed to the county jail of Cook county, in the state of Illinois, and that he be there held in custody until he comply with the orders of this court, or until he is discharged by due process of law.”

On the third day of November,-1886, a writ, in the following form, was issued by the clerk of said United States circuit court:

"To the Marshal of the Northern District of Illinois—Greeting: We command you to attach Julius K. Graves forthwith, if he shall be found in your district, for his contempt of the authority of said court; and, when arrested by you, said marshal, that you commit him, said Graves, to the county jail of Cook county, in the state and Northern district of Illinois; and that the said Graves be held in said county jail of Cook county until he comply with the orders of said court in that behalf, or until he, said Graves, be discharged by due process of law, and have you then and there this writ. Witness,” etc.

A copy of the record in the cause of Corbin v. Graves et al., containing the various orders above recited, with the original writ issued to the marshal of Illinois, is submitted, and an order is asked, directing the marshal of the Northern district of Iowa to arrest the said Graves, and deliver him to the marshal of the Northern district of Illinois.

In support of the application it is urged that section 725 of the Revised Statutes enacts that “the said courts shall have power to impose and administer all necessary oaths, and to punish by fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of the court, contempts of their authority : provided, that such power to punish contempts shall not be construed to extend to any cases except, * * * and the disobedience or resistance by any such officer, or by any party, juror, wit[63]*63ness, or other porson, to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of the said courts;” and that under this section a proceeding in contempt is criminal in its nature, and authorizes the arrest and removal of the party proceeded against under the provisions of section 1014 of the Revised Statutes.

It is settled that proceedings for contempt may bo of a twofold nature : (1) For the purpose of punishing the guilty party for liis disrespect to the court or its order; and (2) as a means of compelling obedience to some lawful order, requiring the party to perform some act or duty required of him, and which he refuses to perform. In re Chiles, 22 Wall. 157.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
29 F. 60, 1886 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-graves-iand-1886.