Woodward, Wight & Co. v. National Box Co.

123 So. 296, 168 La. 701, 1929 La. LEXIS 2066
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMay 20, 1929
DocketNo. 28131.
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 123 So. 296 (Woodward, Wight & Co. v. National Box Co.) 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
Woodward, Wight & Co. v. National Box Co., 123 So. 296, 168 La. 701, 1929 La. LEXIS 2066 (La. 1929).

Opinion

O’NIELL, C. J.

This is an appeal from a judgment dismissing the oppositions of the appellants to an account rendered by the receiver of the National Box Company, Inc. The appellants are three of the creditors of the corporation, or of the receiver.

Soon after the receiver was appointed, he presented a petition to the court, asking for authority to conduct the business of the corporation as a going concern, and was granted the authority; but, after conducting the business for a year and five months, he filed a petition for permission to discontinue the business and sell the property of the corporation, which was all movable property, consisting of machinery and lumber. The prayer of the petition was for authority to discontinue the business of the corporation as a going concern, and for an order directing an auctioneer, named in the petition, to sell, at public auction, after due advertisement, according to law, in lots, to be prepared by the auctioneer according to the kind and character of the property, all of the property of the corporation, of every kind and character on the inventory, except the accounts receivable. The order was granted, authorizing the receiver to discontinue the business of the corporation as a going concern, and to wind up and liquidate its. affairs, and directing the auctioneer named in the petition to sell all of the assets of the corporation described in the inventory, except the accounts receivable, at public auction, for cash, to the highest bidder, after the legal delays and advertisements, all as prayed for and according to law. According to the inventory made a few days after the receiver was appointed, the property of the corporation, which consisted entirely of movable property, was valued at $57,142.47. According to an inventory made sixteen months later, the property of the corporation was valued at $9,442.13. The order of court, directing the auctioneer to sell the property, referred specifically to the latter inventory, which was made less than two months before the sale of the property. A month after the sale was made, the receiver filed his account, styling it a provisional account, in which he disclosed that the total proceeds of the sale of the property amounted to $2,009.70, and that the auctioneer had deducted $229.80 -for the cost of advertisement, his commission, the tax on the auction sale, and labor, thus leaving a net balance of $2,- *706 439.90, which the receiver proposed to distribute. It appears that each and every item on the inventory was sold for less than two-thirds of its appraised value, except an item appraised at $457, which was sold for $305, being only 33 cents more than two-thirds of its appraised value. Included in the inventory of $9,442.13 were bills receivable $2,481.5S, cash $155.55, and the lease of the premises occupied by the factory, $200; hence the appraisement of the property which 1he receiver sold amounted to $6,605. Two-thirds of that sum being $4,403.33, the property was sold for $1,733.63, less than two-thirds of its appraised value.

The complaint of the appellants is that the receiver had no right to allow the property to be sold for less than two-thirds of its appraised value, and therefore that he should be charged with the deficit of $1,733.-63 on the account which he has rendered.

The receiver has moved to dismiss the appeal, on the ground that the account which was approved by the judgment appealed from is only a provisional account. He contends that the creditors have no right to appeal from a judgment approving a provisional account of the receiver of a corporation, especially when, as in this case, the judgment approving the account reserves to the creditors who opposed it the right to oppose any future provisional or final account that may be rendered by the receiver. Although the account is styled a “provisional account” by the receiver and in the judgment approving it, it. is in fact a final account in so far as the judgment approving it would have fixed definitely and settled forever the liability of the receiver for the proceeds of the sale of the movable property of the corporation, if the judgment had not been appealed from. The reservation, in the judgment, of the right of the opponents of the, account, “to oppose any future provisional account or final account that may be filed by the receiver,” would not give these opponents the right to reopen the issue raised in their opposition to this account and determined by the judgment approving it. There may be cases where the issue raised by an opponent of a provisional account of a receiver is not subject to appeal; but the issue tendered in this case is not of that character. In so far as a judgment approving a provisional account of a receiver determines specifically the rights of the creditors, or of any one of them, it becomes res judicata, and the issue so determined cannot be reopened by way of opposition to a subsequent account rendered by the receiver. Louisiana Insurance Co. v. Campbell, 6 Mart. (N. S.) 131; Huntstock v. His Creditors, 11 La. 569; Ory v. His Creditors, 12 La. 121; Lang et al. v. Their Creditors, 14 La. 241; Gardiner v. Brashear, 9 Rob. 61; Allinet v. His Creditors, 15 La. Ann. 132; Succession of Conrad, 45 La. Ann. 89, 11 So. 935; Succession of Allen, 49 La. Ann. 1111, 22 So. 319; Succession of Rabasse, 50 La. Ann. 746, 23 So. 910; Miguez v. Delcambre, 109 La. 1094, 34 So. 99. The motion to dismiss the appeal is overruled.

The receiver pleads that the purchasers of the movable property of the corporation should have been made parties defendant, on the theory that this is an action to annul the sales. It is not an action to annul the sales, but merely a demand that the receiver account for the proceeds of the sales, according to the inventory referred to in the order of sale. Tt was not necessary to make the purchasers of the property parties to the suit, and it was impossible to make them parties, because *708 no record was kept of the names of the parties to whom the several articles were sold.

The receiver pleads also, on the theory that this is an action to annul the sales, that the demand of the appellants was not admissible in a summary proceeding, such as an opposition to a receiver’s account. The answer to the plea is that this is not an action of nullity of the sales, but a demand for an accounting of the proceeds according to the inventory referred to in the order of sale. The complaint is that the receiver has not accounted for two-thirds of the appraised value of the property sold, which complaint is admissible by way of an opposition to the provisional account in which the receiver undertakes to account for the proceeds of the sales.

The receiver pleads also that the appellants cannot consistently claim the proceeds of the sales, while contesting their validity. There 'is no inconsistency in the pleadings of the appellants in that respect. They averred that the sales were invalid because they were made for less than two-thirds of the appraised value of the property sold, but the demand of the appellants is not to recover the property sold but to have an accounting for at least two-thirds of the appraised value. The demand was that the receiver should account for the full value of the property, according to the first inventory, on which each article was appraised higher than on the later inventory. A demand for the appraised value of property, according to an inventory, is, essentially, a demand for at least two-thirds of the appraised value, and is not bad pleading in that respect.

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

Related

Succession of Menendez
155 So. 2d 212 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1963)
Succession of Nock
119 So. 2d 476 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1960)
Bank of Baton Rouge v. Hart Estate, Inc.
44 So. 2d 311 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1950)
Dowling v. Canal Bank & Trust Co.
43 So. 2d 763 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1949)
Liquidation of Canal Bank & Trust Co.
30 So. 2d 841 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1947)
Crichton v. Lee
25 So. 2d 229 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1946)
State Ex Rel. Fitzmaurice v. Clay
23 So. 2d 177 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1945)
In Re Ph&338nix Building Homestead Ass'n
14 So. 2d 447 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1943)
Mouledoux v. Maestri
2 So. 2d 11 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1941)
Amerada Petroleum Corporation v. Reese
196 So. 558 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1940)
State v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
183 So. 219 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1938)
Succession of Spyker
159 So. 347 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1935)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
123 So. 296, 168 La. 701, 1929 La. LEXIS 2066, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/woodward-wight-co-v-national-box-co-la-1929.