Scofield v. Excelsior Oil Co.

17 Ohio C.C. Dec. 347
CourtOhio Circuit Courts
DecidedJanuary 16, 1905
StatusPublished

This text of 17 Ohio C.C. Dec. 347 (Scofield v. Excelsior Oil Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Circuit Courts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Scofield v. Excelsior Oil Co., 17 Ohio C.C. Dec. 347 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1905).

Opinion

MARVIN, J.

This case comes to this court by appeal from the judgment of the court of common pleas.

The questions to be determined relate to whether the defendant, Lester A. Cobb, is liable in any sum to the plaintiff.

Scofield originally brought his suit claiming to be a creditor of the Excelsior Oil Company, which is a corporation, setting out an indebtedness of the corporation to him; that the corporation was without assets and was insolvent; that the defendant, Cobb, was a stockholder in the corporation at the time the indebtedness was created; that he transferred his stock to Charles E. French, who thereafter transferred ■the same to J. B. Huston. Said French is insolvent, and” said Huston died insolvent in 1894. The prayer was for a recovery against Cobb for a proportionate .share of such indebtedness determined by the amount of stock held by him when the indebtedness was created.

Upon a trial had in this court it was held upon the evidence that the corporation was indebted to plaintiff in the sum of $149*016.67, with interest from January 9, 1900, and such holding was made upon the evidence of original indebtedness and transfers of claims made to him.

Upon proceedings in error in the Supreme Court, it was there held that the allegations of the petition were not sufficient to entitle the plaintiff to relief against the stockholders in that no allegation was made that a recovery had been obtained against the company, and that upon execution being issued, no property was found out of which the same could be satisfied, and the case was remanded to the court of common pleas, where it originated, for further proceedings.

Thereafter said' plaintiff brought suit in the court of common pleas of Cuyahoga county against said oil company for said indebtedness. Appearance of the company was entered by its attorneys, and upon hearing, the plaintiff recovered judgment against the company for the sum of $98,497.20, together with costs, said judgment bearing interest from September 22, 1902.

On leave granted, plaintiff, after obtaining such judgment, filed a supplemental petition in this action, setting up the recovery of this judgment; that execution had been issued thereon; that no property of the company was found whereon to levy, and that no part of said judgment has been paid.

Motion was made in the court of common pleas and renewed here, to strike this supplemental petition from the files. This motion was over[349]*349ruled at the time of the hearing, the court reserving the final determination of what should be done therewith until after the case had been heard. Such hearing has been had, and it becomes our duty now to determine whether such motion should have been sustained by this court.

On the part of the plaintiff it is urged that this question is not properly here; that the question was one of discretion with the court of common pleas and its determination must be final unless such discretion was abused. In support of this, reliance is had upon Lan. R. L. 8734 (R. S. 5225) which provides that, when a case is appealed from the court of common pleas to the circuit court, the trial shall be conducted in the latter court ‘ ‘ in the same manner as in the common pleas court, and upon the same pleadings, unless amendments are permitted or ordered by the circuit court. ’ ’

This proposition of the plaintiff is not sound. The construction sought to be given to this section is against repeated holdings of the courts. It has been held many times by this court that an appeal brings up questions upon the pleadings in the same manner as such questions would be raised had this court had original jurisdiction of the case. To hold otherwise would be to hold that if a petition or answer to which a demurrer had been filed-but not sustained, but which clearly ought to have been sustained, that upon an appeal the court could not pass upon that question of pleadings. We hold otherwise. It has been repeatedly said that the appeal brings up the demurrer and all questions raised on demurrer. We hold, therefore, that the motion to strike off this pleading is properly here.

In support of this motion it is urged that, since the Supreme Court has held that the facts as they existed at the time the suit was brought, were not such as to entitle the plaintiff -to recover at all, that he cannot, by the creation of subsequent facts, be permitted to bring such facts into his original action and proceed thereon.

We think this contention is not sound.

The supplemental petition in this ease only added to the allegations of the original petition that judgment had been recovered by plaintiff against the company on the indebtedness set out in the original petition, and failure to obtain any property upon execution with which to satisfy said judgment. It made no claim for an indebtedness not claimed in the original petition, nor did it make any new allegation as to the actual insolvency of the company, but only set out the facts occurring after the bringing of the suit, which the law requires in a proceeding of this kind as evidence of such insolvency before suit can be maintained against the stockholders.

[350]*350In the case of Gibbon v. Dougherty, 10 Ohio St. 365, it is held that, where in aid of execution on a judgment, the judgment creditor brings an action to subject to the satisfaction of his judgment, the debt of a' debtor of the judgment debtor, and such debtor of the judgment debtor is served in the action, the fact that after such service, the judgment upon which the action is brought is set aside at a subsequent term for irregularity, and a new judgment is entered, it is proper to set up such facts in a supplemental petition and proceed with the action.

In the opinion, on pages 371 and 372, this language is used by the court:

“The subject-matter of the suit and the parties in the action, as well as the object of the suit, all continued to be before the court. The substantial object was the payment of the debt of the judgment debtor; and the reversal of that judgment for an irregularity, was in no sense an intimation of its payment, or a relinquishment of the claim of the plaintiff td enforce its payment in the manner and by the means expressed in the petition. The law, which never requires a vain thing, would not, therefore, require a plaintiff, after having the irregularity in the judgment cured by a new judgment expressing the same debt, incur the delay and expense of dismissing the suit and commencing de novo, when the entire proceeding could be perfected by a supplemental petition. And our practice, as regulated by the code, shows still less favor to objections merely technical. A supplemental petition was always regarded as only ancillary to the original petition. Its office is to bring before the court some event which has happened subsequently to the commencement of the suit. The. plaintiff does not thereby withdraw any allegation in his original petition not inconsistent with the averments in the supplemental petition. If, therefore, the plaintiff had even neglected to make, as he has done in this case, special reference in his supplemental petition to 'his original petition, he would still have been entitled to the full benefit of the same.”

1 Nash, Pleading & Practice page 288 and following, discusses this question, and cites authorities and quotations in brief of counsel for plaintiff are made from them, and we think the holding as enunciated here is in full accord with these authorities.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
17 Ohio C.C. Dec. 347, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/scofield-v-excelsior-oil-co-ohiocirct-1905.