Land Title & Trust Co. v. Tatnall

132 F. 305, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4334
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedSeptember 8, 1904
DocketNos. 45, 47
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 132 F. 305 (Land Title & Trust Co. v. Tatnall) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Land Title & Trust Co. v. Tatnall, 132 F. 305, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4334 (3d Cir. 1904).

Opinion

ACHESON, Circuit Judge.

These are two appeals by William C. Bullitt from decrees of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of New" Jersey entered, respectively, on July 6, 1903, and January 8, 1904, in the consolidated cause in equity of the Land Title & Trust Company v. Henry Tatnall, Receiver of the Asphalt Company of America, and others, denying the appellant’s petitions for leave to intervene in the cause and for other relief. The appellant is the holder partly in his own right and partly in a representative capacity of certain collateral gold certificates issued by the Land Title & Trust Company under an agreement between, that company and the Asphalt Company of America, dated July 15, 1899, whereby the latter company agreed to make certain payments to the Land Title & Trust Company, and as security for such payments to deposit with that company certain stocks and bonds, the holders of the said certificates being entitled to receive from the Land Title & Trust Company, out of the moneys so to be paid to it by the Asphalt Company, certain specified sums at designated times. Upon the appeals of Harry C. Spinks, which we recently heard and disposed of (127 Fed. 1), we had before us the above-mentioned agreement of July 15, 1899, and the affiliated agreement of December 31, 1900, for the further security of the holders of the certificates, and we then had occasion to consider the relation between the certificate holders and the Asphalt Company of Ameri[306]*306ca. The pertinent facts are set forth with much fullness, and the whole subject is discussed, in the opinion of this court delivered by. Judge Gray in that case., .Land Title & Trust Co. v. Asphalt Co. of America, 127 Fed. 1. We there determined that these certificate holders were not creditors of the Asphalt Company of America, and that they were represented in this litigation by their trustee,- the Land' Title & Trust Company. The views of this court are thus stated in that opinion:

“The appellant (Spinks) is the owner of 133 of the collateral gold certificates issued by the Land Title & Trust Company under the agreement of July 15, 1899. The total amount outstanding of said certificates, as found by the master appointed by the court, and by the court in its decree of April 3, 1903, was $29,830,754.57. About 2,000 persons hold these certificates. It was not contemplated by the court, nor necessary, that the receivers should have presented to them for allowance certificates in the hands of individual holders, as the decree itself fixed the aggregate amount of them outstanding, and made it unnecessary for holders to prove their individual claims. The Land Title & Trust Company was not merely a trustee of property pledged or mortgaged to it, but was also the creditor' of the Asphalt Company of America. The Asphalt Company of America acknowledged the sum total of its indebtedness to the said the Land Title & Trust Company, and conveyed to it its property and effects in pledge to secure the same, the trustee, issuing the gold certificates to the various holders to the aggregate amount already stated, and making them its- cestui que trustent for the payment of the interest and principal, when received from the debtor company.- It was, therefore, the Land Title & Trust Company, as trustee, which was entitled, as creditor of the insolvent company, to prove the aggregate debt, including, of course, that part of it represented by the certificate held by the appellant. The decree of the court of April 3, 1903, fixed the status of the holders of collateral gold certificates as holders thereof in accordance with the agreement of July 15, 1899, between the Land Title. & Tr,ust Company and, the Asphalt Company of America, to the amount in par value of $29,430,754.57, and the holders of such certificates were therefore adjudicated to be entitled, through their trustee, as valid claimants secured by said agreement.
“The contention of the appellant that the direction to the receiver to receive proof of all debts and obligations of the Asphalt Company of America entitled him to present his claim as a holder of collateral gold certificates cánnot be supported. The receiver allowed and reported upon no claims of holders of collateral gold certificates, and it does not appear that any appli-, cation, other than that of the appellant, was made to him for that purpose. No good reason was shown why appellant’s case should be Segregated from that of 2,000 other holders, or that his security as such holder was in any way affected to his detriment by the decision of the receivers. The appellant became the owner of his gold certificates, subject to any limitations' imposed by the form, in which they were made; that is to say, the obligations entered by the Asphalt Company of America in and by said agreement of pledge or by the said trustee. The company covenants in said agreement to pay tó. the trustee the moneys necessary to pay interest on the certificates as they fall due, and also certain sinking fund amounts, and it is the trustee only who has, by the form of such certificate, direct obligation to the certificate holder, and in the said agreement of July 15, 1899,'it is expressly provided that,, ‘any proceedings^» enforce any covenant of the company herein contained by legal, proceedings shall be in tie name of the- trustee for the benefit of all the holders of the certificates outstanding.’ ” 127 Fed. 16, 17.

In conformity with the foregoing views, and upon great consideration, we, held that the appellant, Spinks, was (not entitled to intervene in this litigation by reason of his holding collateral gold certificates issued under this agreement of July 15, 1899, and that the court below rightly denied his petitions for intervention in the cause, although, besides be[307]*307ing a holder of certificates, he was also a stockholder of the asphalt company.

Upon the appeals of Spinks we further held that the orders denying his petition for intervention were not appealable. Speaking for this court, Judge Gray there said:

“Such orders are not final decisions, in the sense of the statute, and are within the discretion of the court making them, unless it shall affirmatively appear that the petition of intervention was for the purpose of enforcing an individual right of the petitioner, for the assertion of which there is no other remedy, and which will be entirely lost if intervention is denied. If, for instance, a fund is to be distributed by tbe court in a suit then before it, tbe denial of a petition to intervene of one wbo claims tbe right to participate in tbe distribution by reason, of a title distinct and apart from all other individuals or classes to be affected by tbe decree would be a final decree as to such petitioner, for tbe reasons that his claim of right would be finally disposed of and lost by such denial. The petition to intervene in such ease is of right, and not addressed merely to the discretion of the court.
“The general rule, however, is as stated by tbe Circuit Court of Appeals in Hamlin v. Toledo, St. L. & K. C. R. R. Co., 78 Fed. 665, 24 C. C. A. 272, 36 L. R. A. 826: ‘The allowance or denial of the application of a stranger to be admitted as a party defendant to a pending suit in equity rests in tbe sound discretion of the chancellor. Tbe denial of such an application is not such a final decree as is the subject of appeal.

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Bluebook (online)
132 F. 305, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4334, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/land-title-trust-co-v-tatnall-ca3-1904.