State Ex Rel. Auchincloss, Parker & Redpath, Inc. v. Harris

159 S.W.2d 799, 349 Mo. 190, 1942 Mo. LEXIS 347
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 13, 1942
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 159 S.W.2d 799 (State Ex Rel. Auchincloss, Parker & Redpath, Inc. v. Harris) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Auchincloss, Parker & Redpath, Inc. v. Harris, 159 S.W.2d 799, 349 Mo. 190, 1942 Mo. LEXIS 347 (Mo. 1942).

Opinion

*194 ELLISON, J.

Prohibition to respondent, Hon. Brown Harris, Judge of the circuit court of Jackson County, Division 4, to prevent him from exercising jurisdiction over a cause there pending entitled Aviation Manufacturing Corporation, plaintiff, v. Auchincloss, Parker & Redpath, Inc.; Porterfield Aircraft Corporation; and Columbia Aircraft Corporation, defendants. For brevity the plaintiff in said cause below will be referred to as the Aviation Co.; and the three defendants, respectively, as the Auchineloss Co., The Porterfield Co., and the Columbia Co. All four litigants are Delaware corporations, and the first and third defendants are the relators here. The action is in the nature of a creditor’s bill, a class suit in equity, brought by the plaintiff Aviation Co. as a judgment creditor of the Porterfield Co. in the amount of about $11,600. On the filing here of relators’ petition for prohibition our provisional rule urns issued, and respondent filed return raising only issues of law. Relators moved for judgment on the pleadings. This confines the proceeding to the legal questions raised by those pleadings, stripped of issues of fact.

The facts stated in the pleadings here with reference to the suit below may be condensed to the following. It was alleged in the petition in that suit that the plaintiff is a judgment creditor and has no adequate remedy at law; and that the judgment debtor Porterfield Co. is insolvent, and execution against it would be unavailing and in-, effective. It was further alleged that the Porterfield Co. had executed to the defendant-relator Auchineloss Co. a note and purported but *195 void chattel mortgage on certain of its personalty in Kansas City; and that the Auchineloss Co. agreed to acquire all the property and business of the Porterfield Co. and to pay all its creditors. Title thereto was obtained by a purported foreclosure of said chattel mortgage, reinforced by a bill of sale covering said encumbered and all remaining property, said title being placed in the name of the Columbia Co., a corporation organized for that purpose; so that the latter became the purported successor of the Porterfield Co. in its business and ownership of said property. As a consideration the Auchineloss Co. received 250,000 shares of the capital stock of the Columbia Co., and in equity stood seized of all said property as a trust fund for the benefit of the creditors of the Porterfield Co. The Auchineloss Co. furthermore owed the Porterfield Co. $25,000 for capital stock purchased; and also held the note of the Columbia Co. for $4,000, secured by a chattel mortgage on a large part of the aforesaid property.

In the bill the plaintiff Aviation Co. prayed judgment for its said judgment debt of $11,600; that all assets of the Porterfield Co. in the possession or control of the defendants be impressed with a trust for the benefit of the plaintiff; that pending final determination of the suit the defendants be enjoined and restrained from selling or removing any of said assets from Jackson County, Missouri; and for general relief.

On the plaintiff’s affidavit in attachment alleging that the defendant-relator Auchineloss Co. was a nonresident of the state and that its chief office and place of business was outside the state, a writ of attachment was issued against the Auchineloss Co., and in aid thereof the Commerce Trust Co. and the defendant-relator Columbia Co. were garnisheed for all personal property and debts severally owed by them to the Auchineloss Co., specifically including all shares of stock held by the latter in the Columbia Co., but not specifically mentioning the Columbia Co.’s $4,000 note indebtedness to the Auchineloss Co. The writ of attachment was not served on the Auchineloss Co., since it was a nonresident and therefore out of reach of personal process; and no effort was made to attach said $25,000 indebtedness which it allegedly owed the judgment debtor, Porterfield Co. Respondent also entered an order to show cause why a temporary restraining order should not issue, which was served on the Porterfield Co. and the Columbia Co., but not on the Auchineloss Co.

The Auchineloss Co., appearing specially, filed a plea to the jurisdiction and motion to quash the writ of attachment; also a plea to the jurisdiction against the order to show cause. The defendant-relator Columbia Co. moved to quash the garnishment and service thereof, including the interrogatories filed. The respondent judge overruled the Auchineloss Co.’s said plea to the jurisdiction against the attachment on the ground that by filing the same it had entered its general *196 appearance. But as to the corporate stock of the Columbia Co. garnisheed as the property of the Auchincloss Co., the motion to quash the attachment was sustained. The Auchincloss Co.’s plea challenging respondent’s jurisdiction to issue the show cause order was overruled. The Columbia Co. ’s motion to quash said garnishment was overruled, except as to its said corporate stock. Otherwise it was ordered to answer the interrogatories in three days, and within the same time the Auchincloss Co. was required to plead, the attachment theretofore issued to be dissolved upon the filing of answer to the merits. The Auchincloss Co. did not plead over but brought this prohibition proceeding. The return of the respondent judge to our provisional rule in prohibition alleges that the Commerce Trust Co., garnishee, answered stating it held funds belonging to the Auchincloss Co.; and that the relator Columbia Co. filed answer to the merits.

The grounds assigned in the Auchincloss Co. ’s plea to the jurisdiction and motion to quash the attachment were: that the plaintiff Aviation Co.’s petition and affidavit for attachment alleged both the defendant-relators, Auchincloss Co. and Columbia Co., were nonresidents; that our attachment statutes do not authorize one foreign corporation to be attached for shares of stock it owns in another; that consequently the respondent judge had no jurisdiction to issue the attachment. This ground is repeated in relators’ petition for prohibition here; but need not be considered in this opinion since respondent upheld relators on that contention and does not base his claim to jurisdiction on it now. Relators said nothing in their motion to quash the attachment below, and are silent in their petition for prohibition and brief here, about the garnishment of the $4,000 note indebtedness allegedly due from the Columbia Co. to the Auchincloss Co., and the funds held by the Commerce Trust Co. But they do add in their petition another sweeping ground, to-wit, that the creditors’ bill below was purely a suit in equity; and that attachment and garnishment were not available remedies therein because they can be invoked only in actions at law.

Respondent’s counsel say in the Statement in their brief that this question was not raised below “in any pleading filed in the proceeding. ’ ’ But there is nothing to indicate the result would have been different if the question had been raised; for the respondent judge does not ask that it be disregarded, but stands on his rulings and briefs the question here. In that situation the omission to raise the question in the trial court is not necessarily fatal. [State ex rel. Moberly v. Sevier, 337 Mo. 1174, 1179(3), 88 S. W. (2d) 154, 157(5); State ex rel. Mo. Pac. Ry. Co. v. Williams, 221 Mo. 227, 247, 120 S. W.

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Bluebook (online)
159 S.W.2d 799, 349 Mo. 190, 1942 Mo. LEXIS 347, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-auchincloss-parker-redpath-inc-v-harris-mo-1942.