Williams v. Great Southern Life Ins. Co.

160 S.W.2d 121
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 19, 1942
DocketNos. 11368, 11369.
StatusPublished

This text of 160 S.W.2d 121 (Williams v. Great Southern Life Ins. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Great Southern Life Ins. Co., 160 S.W.2d 121 (Tex. Ct. App. 1942).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

Great Southern Life Insurance Company filed this, its suit, based upon notes, seeking to foreclose on lands, asking for a money judgment and foreclosure against property of J. L. Williams et al.; J. L. Williams is the principal defendant; proceedings in the State Court were abated and suspended as early as April, 1934, and down to the datel of this judgment, September 30, 1941; a plea in abatement was filed by J. L. Williams setting forth the pendency of proceedings in bankruptcy in the Amarillo Division of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, and other grounds of abatement; the District Court overruled the abatement plea and decreed judgment on the debt and for a foreclosure on properties belonging to J. L. Williams et al.- — the abatement setting up the pendency of bankruptcy proceedings for farmers, evidenced by a petition in bankruptcy, was filed by Joseph Lanlcston Williams, one and the same person as J. L. Williams, on the 19th day of October, 1940, being No. 1304 in Bankruptcy, in the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, and further *122 setting forth that the record was before the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting at New Orleans, Louisiana, that such proceeding was appealed to that court on the 8th day of April, 1941, and that the record was printed and filed in the Circuit Court on the 14th day of June, 1941.

Appellants duly excepted to the judgment entered by the State District Court in this cause, and gave notice of appeal, and in due and proper time filed their appeal bond, and this cause is now properly and legally before this court.

To this statement it should be added, however, that the bankruptcy proceeding filed by appellant, J. L. Williams, was by the United States District Court dismissed on October 25, 1940, and that Williams, when he so appealed on April 8 of 1941 from such order of dismissal, did not file any super-sedeas bond.

Appellants in this court raise only the question of whether or not the trial court had jurisdiction to entertain the cause at all, in these two presentments:

“Point of Error No. I.
“The Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas, sitting in Bankruptcy, had the exclusive jurisdiction over the assets and liabilities of J. L. Williams at the time judgment was rendered on the debt and for foreclosure in this action.
“Point of Error No. II.
“These proceedings in the State District Court for debt and foreclosure should be abated as against J. L. Williams, after the filing by J. L. Williams, on October 19, 1940, of proceedings in composition or extension in bankruptcy.”

Since, as indicated, the quoted points together raised but the one question of jurisdiction, they are likewise supported by a single list of authorities, which is this:

Acts of Congress relating to Bankruptcy of Farmers

Title 11, U.S.C.A. Section 203, known as Section 75 in Bankruptcy Act

Subsection n
Subsection o
Subsection o Subsection (2)
Subsection p
Subsection r

Benitez v. Bank of Nova Scotia, 313 U.S. 270, 61 S.Ct. 953, 85 L.Ed. 1324; Chandler Act, § 1(17) 11 U.S.C.A. § 1(17); First National Bank & Trust Co. v. Beach, 301 U.S. 435, 57 S.Ct. 801, 81 L.Ed. 1206; Kalb v. Feuerstein, 308 U.S. 433, 60 S.Ct. 343, 84 L.Ed. 370; Shyvers v. Security First National Bank, 9 Cir., 108 F.2d 611, 126 A.L.R. 674; Joseph Lankston Williams, Debtor, Appellant, v. Great Southern Life Insurance Company et al., Appellees, 5 Cir., December 13, 1941, 124 F.2d 38.

On reviewing the record, this court concludes that, aside from such aid and comfort as they may take from their own construction of Section 75, of the Act of Congress, 11 U.S.C.A. § 203, relating to bankruptcy of • farmers and its relied-upon subsections, the authorities appellants so cite do not support either of their claimed points of error — quite the contrary, when they are applied to the distinguishing facts of this case, the talisman to which has already been earmarked in the concluding recitation of the general statement supra, to the effect that the Bankruptcy Court had, six days after Williams filed his application for relief as a farmer at the hands of that court under Section 75, dismissed the entire proceeding; whereupon, and at a time when in consequence there was nothing pending in any way invoking the Bankruptcy Court’s jurisdiction, the State Court resumed the jurisdiction over this controversy it had had since March 29 of 1934, when the suit had been first filed therein, and, after hearing the evidence, entered this appealed-from judgment on September 30 of 1941.

In other words, it seems clear that, on) the authority of the decisions the appellants themselves so cite, that at the time this judgment was rendered a Federal District Court, because of such dismissal of the bankruptcy proceedings from its docket, had no jurisdiction of the assets or liabilities of Williams; wherefore it was competent for the State trial court to proceed to hear the cause that had been so long pending there, and thereupon to enter the judgment now at this bar. As indicated, this suit had been originally filed in the trial court March 29 of 1934; on April 2 of 1934 the Williamses and another filed their pleas in abatement to have the prosecution of the suit deferred until another suit by them against the appellee here, that was then pending in another district court of Texas, could be first disposed of; on April 23 of 1934 the trial *123 court sustained those pleas and so suspended a trial of this cause until a final judgment should be entered in that other district court of Texas; subsequently that impediment, too, had been removed by the final disposition of that cause, as reflected in Great Southern Life Ins. Co. v. Williams, Tex.Civ.App., 135 S.W.2d 241.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

First National Bank & Trust Co. v. Beach
301 U.S. 435 (Supreme Court, 1937)
Union Joint Stock Land Bank of Detroit v. Byerly
310 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court, 1940)
Benitez Sampayo v. Bank of Nova Scotia
313 U.S. 270 (Supreme Court, 1941)
Kalb v. Feuerstein
308 U.S. 433 (Supreme Court, 1940)
Great Southern Life Ins. Co. v. Williams
135 S.W.2d 241 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1939)
Shyvers v. Security-First Nat. Bank of Los Angeles.
108 F.2d 611 (Ninth Circuit, 1939)
Williams v. Great Southern Life Ins.
124 F.2d 38 (Fifth Circuit, 1941)
In re Snyder
32 F. Supp. 903 (N.D. West Virginia, 1940)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
160 S.W.2d 121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-great-southern-life-ins-co-texapp-1942.