United States Blowpipe Co. v. Spencer

56 S.E. 345, 61 W. Va. 191, 1907 W. Va. LEXIS 122
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 56 S.E. 345 (United States Blowpipe Co. v. Spencer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States Blowpipe Co. v. Spencer, 56 S.E. 345, 61 W. Va. 191, 1907 W. Va. LEXIS 122 (W. Va. 1907).

Opinion

SaNders, Judge:

This is the third time this cause has been before this Court upon appeal,, and to present more clearly our reasons, for the conclusion we have reached, a brief history of the case will be given. The Point Pleasant Furniture Company, on the 11th day of December, 1891, executed a trust deed to J. P. R. B. Smith, upon certain real estate lying in Mason county, which it had purchased from the Kanawha Lumber and Furniture Company, to secure the payment of certain notes given for the unpaid purchase money, amounting in the aggregate to the sum of five thousand dollars. The notes, being payable to J. S. Spencer, J. J. Bright, T. Strib-ling and R. Wiley, Jr., they being the sole owners of the stock of the Kanawha Lumber and Furniture Company, were assigned to J. S. Spencer about the time of or soon after the execution of the trust deed.

On the lJth day of July, 1892, the plaintiff, United States Blowpipe Company, on an account against the Point Pleasant [193]*193Furniture Company of seventeen hundred and twelve dollars and fifty cents, filed a mechalic’s lien against the said real estate, and on the 14th day of July, 1892, the defendant, Moore Carving Machine Company, also filed a mechanic’s lien against the Point Pleasant Furniture Company for the sum of twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars. On the 5th day of December, 1892, Smith, trustee under the said deed of trust, sold the property thereby conveyed for the sum of nineteen thousand three hundred dollars, and paid the same to the lien creditors of the Point Pleasant Furniture Company, except the sum of three thousand and twenty-six dollars and seventy-five cents. Later the plaintiff Blowpipe Company, filed its bill in equity against J. S. Spencer, Smith, trustee, the Moore Carving Machine Company and others, for • the purpose of enforcing its mechanic’s lien and to set aside the said deed of trust and sale made thereunder, and set up the mechanic’s lien of the Moore Carving Machine Company. A demurrer to the bill was interposed by certain of the defendants, which was sustained. In the meantime the plaintiff and the Moore Carving Machine Company obtained judgments upon their accounts for which, the mechanic’s liens had been filed, and upon the demurrer being sustained, the Blowpipe Company filed an amended bill, more specifically setting up its mechanic’s lien, as well as the mechanic’s lien of the Moore Carving Machine Company, and also setting up the said judgments, and asking to. have the trustee’s sale and deed made in pursuance thereof, set aside; to which amended bill a demurrer' was also interposed by some of the defendants, which was likewise sustained, and the bill and amended bill dismissed. From this decree the plaintiff appealed, and secured a reversal thereof, as will appear from the reported decision of the case in 40 W. Va. 698. Upon the- case being remanded to the circuit court, the Fairbanks Company, Mayer & Loewenstein,, the American Dryer Company and Page Belting Company came into the cause by petition, and were made parties defendant therein.

The answers of James P. Hayes, the purchaser of the property sold under the trust deed, and of Smith, trustee, were filed, averring, among other things, a compliance with the terms of sale, and alleging that the sale had been made [194]*194pursuant to the terms and provisions of the trust deed,, and denying the allegations of the bill made for the purpose of setting aside the trustee’s sale and deed.

The Point Pleasant Furniture Company filed affidavits showing that the demurrer which appeared to have been interposed by it had been filed inadvertently and without authority, and thereupon the order showing the filing of such demurrer was in'that respect corrected, and the bill taken for confessed as to it. Thereupon the Point Pleasant Furniture Companjr and others of the defendants filed pleas setting up the irregularity of the service of process upon the Point Pleasant Furniture Company, to which, pleas general replications were filed, and certain of the defendants craved oyer of the summons and demurred to the plaintiff’s bill, and the cause coming on to be heard upon the pleadings, former orders and depositions which had been taken and filed in the cause, the service of process upon the Point Pleasant Furniture Company was adjudged to be void, and the plaintiff’s bill dismissed, from which decree the plaintiff again appealed, and upon a hearing of the appeal in this Court the same was reversed and the cause remanded. 46 ~W. Va. 590. Upon return of the cause to the circuit court for the second time, the defendants, Fairbanks Company, Mayer & Loewenstein, the American Dryer Company and Page Belting Company demurred to the plaintiff’s bill, which was overruled, and thereupon they filed separate answers, attacking the mechanic’s liens of the plaintiff and the Moore Carving Machine Company; and the Clapp Patent Case Company filed a petition setting up a judgment against the Point Pleasant Furniture Company, and charging the defendant J. S. Spencer with fraud in promoting and organizing the Point Pleasant Furniture Company. The cause, ■over the objection of a number of the defendants, was referred to a commissioner, to ascertain and report, among other things, the amount of money in the hands of Charles E. Hogg, general receiver-, to the credit of this suit — the said .sum of three thousand and twenty-six dollars and seventy-five cents, remaining in the hands of Smith, trustee, having, in the meantime, been paid over to the said receiver, and by him, under the order of the court, loaned out — the liens upon such money, the nature, character and priorities [195]*195thereof, what real estate was then owned by the defendant, Point Pleasant Furniture Company, and what real estate was owned by it at the time of the filing of the mechanic’s liens, what sale was made of the Point Pleasant Furniture Company-’s real property and by what authority and by virtue of what lien or liens, and the amount realized from the sale thereof, and what disposition was made of the money; what debts set forth in the cause had been paid, and out of what fund, and if paid upon any lien of any kind, the date of such lien and how-created.

Upon the coming in of the report, various exceptions were endorsed, all of which were overruled, and the court fixed and adjudicated the liens and the priorities thereof against the Point Pleasant Furniture Company, and held the'mechanic’s liens of the plaintiff and the Moore Carving Machine Company to be valid and binding, and gave them priority over all other liens, and that of the plaintiff priority over the lien of the Moore Carving Machine Company, and directed the general receiver, out of the money in his hands, as such, in this cause, to pay to the plaintiff the' sum of three thousand and sixty-three dollars and sixty-six cents, and to the Moore Carving Machine Company the sum of two thousand one hundred and ninety-four dollars and eighty-three cents, with interest from the 4th day of December, 1905, until paid, these two sums, being the -aggregate amount, including principal and interest, reported by the commissioner as being in the receiver’s hands; and ordering further that if any money remained in his hands to the credit of the sum to pay the same on the remaining liens, in the order of their priority as fixed by the decree; and from this decree the defendants, Fairbanks Company, Mayer & Loewenstein, Page Belting Company, the American Dryer Company and Charles E. Hogg, general receiver, have appealed.

The first question we have to determine is whether or not the demurrer to the plaintiff’s bill should have been sustained.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
56 S.E. 345, 61 W. Va. 191, 1907 W. Va. LEXIS 122, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-blowpipe-co-v-spencer-wva-1907.