Putnam & Norman, Ltd. v. Conner

80 So. 265, 144 La. 231, 1918 La. LEXIS 1729
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedNovember 4, 1918
DocketNo. 23050
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 80 So. 265 (Putnam & Norman, Ltd. v. Conner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Putnam & Norman, Ltd. v. Conner, 80 So. 265, 144 La. 231, 1918 La. LEXIS 1729 (La. 1918).

Opinion

O’NIEDD, J.

This action is brought by two creditors of the First Natchez Bank, a corporation domiciled in Adams county, Miss., to annul a sale made by the receivers of the bank under orders of the chancery court in Adams county, Miss., of a plantation situated in Concordia Parish, La. And the question is whether the district court of Concordia parish, La., had jurisdiction of the case.

The suit was brought against the purchaser of the plantation, residing in the state of Iowa, and against the receivers, residing and domiciled in Adams county, Miss., appointed by and serving under the orders of the chancery court for that county. By Supplemental petition, the plaintiffs cited other parties as defendants, who had bought portions of the plantation from the one who had bought from the receivers.

The defendants filed pleas to the jurisdiction of the court, ratione materiee et personae. The pleas were argued and submitted for decision; and, having the matter under advisement, the judge requested that the defendants then file, with reservation of their pleas to the jurisdiction, any other pleas or exceptions that they intended to urge in the event of his overruling the pleas to the jurisdiction. With that reservation (to which plaintiffs’ counsel objected), the defendants filed exceptions of no cause or right of action and pleas of estoppel and of res judicata. It appears that, although the judge heard arguments on all of the pleas and exceptions, he ruled on only the pleas to the jurisdiction and the exceptions of no cause or right of action. The pleas to the jurisdiction were overruled as to the suit of Putnam & Norman (the amount of whose claim against the bank is $S,133.31), and were sustained as to the other plaintiff (the amount of whose claim is only $20.70). The exceptions of no cause or right of action were sustained and the suit of both plaintiffs was dismissed. The plaintiffs prosecute this appeal; and all of the defendants except the receivers, answering the appeal, pray that the pleas to the jurisdiction of the district court be sustained against íutnam & Norman as well as against the other plaintiff, and, in the alternative, that the judgment sustaining the exceptions of no cause or right of action be affirmed.

The petition apparently contains two demands in the alternative, the primary demand being for the annulment of the sale for fraud on the part of the receivers and the purchaser, the alternative demand being for an annulment of the sale because it was not made by public auction, but by an ordinary conventional transfer by authentic act. As a matter of fact, the petition sets forth only one cause for demanding an annulment of the sale; that is, that it was not made at public auction, and that, as plaintiffs, aver, the price realized was only a third of the value of the property, only, a third of what it would have been if the sale had been made at public auction. There is no allegation that the receivers were in bad faith. On the contrary, there is an allegation which, in effect, admits that they acted in good faith, merely obeying the orders of the chancery court, whose officers they were. We refer to the allegation that the receivers were ignorant of the value of the property, were deceived by the purchaser as to the value, and in fact made opposition to his proposition to buy the property. From that we infer that the question of advisability of selling the property at the price offered was fully considered by the chancery court before the receivers were ordered to make [235]*235the sale, in the receivership proceedings, to which the plaintiffs and all other creditors of the bank were parties. In fact, the plaintiffs admit in their petition that they took part in the receivership proceedings in the chancery court in Adams county, Miss., and proved their claims there; and, in effect, they admit that’ they have received distributive dividends from the receivers, for they allege that, at the time the receivers were appointed, the claim of Putnam & Norman amounted to $9,918.67, and the claim of the other plaintiff amounted to $23, and that Putnam & Norman have since received $1,-785.36 of their claim, and that the other plaintiff has received $2.30, exactly 10 per cent, of his claim. And there is the further allegation that the bank and its affairs were, when this suit was filed, and had been continuously for more than four years, under administration by the receivers appointed by the chancery court in Adams county, Miss.

The petition discloses that there was a receivership of the bank pending in the district court of Concordia parish during a period of three years; that is, from a date about one month after the receivers were appointed by the Mississippi court to a date ten months before this suit was filed, at which date the administration was closed and the Louisiana receivers were discharged.

The petition does not disclose what property, if any, was administered by the Louisiana receivers. It is alleged that, during their administration, the plantation in contest belonged to a corporation styled the Concordia Planting Company, of which the bank owned all of the capital stock; and that, under orders of the chancery court in Adams county, Miss., the plantation was transferred to the receivers appointed by that court, as a convenient means of converting the capital slock into cash, by having the receivers make the sale, which is in contest in this suit. Hence it appears that the plantation itself was never the property of the bank, but the title was vested in the receivers as officers of the chancery court in Adams county, Miss., for the purpose merely of converting into cash, for administration by the receivers and distribution among the creditors of the bank, the capital stock in the Concordia Planting Company. That view of the case, however, need not influence our judgment on the question at issue.

The plaintiffs had the two individuals who had served as receivers in the district court of Concordia parish cited to show cause why they should not be reinstated in office, or, in the alternative, why they or other receivers should not be newly appointed to take charge of the plantation when the sale should be annulled.

Curators ad hoc were appointed to represent the absentees, including the receivers in Mississippi; but all of the defendants employed attorneys, who appeared and filed the pleas to the jurisdiction and the other pleas and exceptions. One of the receivers residing in Mississippi was cited personally in Concordia parish, La.

The prayer of the petition is: First, that the plaintiffs have judgment against the bank and the receivers thereof for the amount of their claims, respectively, and, in the alternative, that the judgments and decrees of the chancery court in Adams county, Miss., recognizing the plaintiffs’ claims, be confirmed and made the judgments of the district court of Concordia parish; second, that the sale complained of be annulled, in so far as it affects the plaintiffs’ claims, and that all of the property or money taken from the bank or the receivership by virtue of the sale, or the value of the property, to the amount of the plaintiffs’ claims, be applied to the payment thereof, and that the sheriff of Concordia parish be ordered to seize and sell the plantation to satisfy the plaintiffs’ claims, in preference to all other claims against the [237]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
80 So. 265, 144 La. 231, 1918 La. LEXIS 1729, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/putnam-norman-ltd-v-conner-la-1918.