Albers v. Moffitt

• Decision Date: 19 December 1914
• Parties: C. H. ALBERS, Appellant, v. NAT L. MOFFITT et al.; MERCHANTS EXCHANGE BANK OF ST. LOUIS, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

172 S.W. 11

262 Mo. 645

C. H. ALBERS, Appellant, v. NAT L. MOFFITT et al.; MERCHANTS EXCHANGE BANK OF ST. LOUIS, Appellant

Supreme Court of Missouri, First Division

December 19, 1914

Appeal from St. Louis City Circuit Court. -- Hon. O'Neil Ryan Judge.

STATEMENT.

There were two appeals in this case, both primarily to the St Louis Court of Appeals. One was taken by the Merchants Exchange from that portion of a decree of the trial court which enjoined it from enforcing a resolution suspending plaintiff, C. H. Albers, for a definite period from any and all privileges of the Board of Trade conducted by the Merchants Exchange. The other appeal was taken by said Albers from that portion of the same decree of the trial court which dismissed his suit as to the individual defendants. These two cross-appeals were pending in the St. Louis Court of Appeals and one of them, that taken by the Merchants Exchange, was disposed of in Missouri Appeals, vol. 140, p. 446. The other appeal, as is shown by a file mark on the record before us was on March 30, 1909, transferred to this court, on the motion of the respondents, for the following reason: "because the amount involved is more than forty-five hundred dollars." This latter appeal was argued and submitted in this court on the 19th day of October, 1914 (at its October Term). Other phases of this controversy have been before this court: C. H. Albers Com. Co. v. Spencer, 205 Mo. 105; Ibid., 245 Mo. 368.

The substance of the petition culminating in the judgment from which these two cross-appeals were taken is that C. H. Albers, plaintiff, on behalf of the Albers Commission Company, of which he was president, entered into contract with the defendant, Moffitt, on behalf of the Commission Company, of which he was likewise president, for the sale for future delivery of certain grain, such contracts to mature and delivery to be made before the 31st of December, 1903; that to secure his engagement, about twenty thousand dollars was put up with said purchaser as a margin; that thereafter said purchaser formed a secret agreement with his co-defendants, Spencer & Milliken, to "forestall the market in wheat in St. Louis," to the end that said Spencer & Milliken should be able to dictate the price of wheat in transactions upon the Board of Trade; that for this purpose the grain contracts executed by plaintiff had been transferred to said Spencer & Milliken, in order to assist them in their conspiracy to corner the wheat market; that thereafter, to-wit, March, 1904, the said Hubbard & Moffitt Commission Company returned to plaintiff the sum of $ 1790.25, being the amount of difference between the contract price of the grain which plaintiff had agreed to sell them, and the "fictitious price of 92c per bushel," which the defendants (Spencer & Milliken and Hubbard & Moffitt Commission Company) by means of their corner of the market had created and fixed for the price of said grain on and before December 31, 1903; that when this was done, plaintiff refused to return to said Hubbard & Moffitt the reciprocal paper memoranda evidencing the original contracts of purchase of said grain executed at the time by the said Moffitt & Company; that for such refusal the defendant, Merchants Exchange, passed a resolution suspending him from the privileges of membership in that body; that said resolution was invalid. The prayer of plaintiff's petition is to-wit:

"Wherefore, the premises considered, plaintiff prays the court to enjoin and restrain said Merchants Exchange of St. Louis from further enforcing said resolution or order of suspension of plaintiff and that said order or resolution be cancelled and decreed to be void, and that the said contracts between the C. H. Albers Commission Company and the Hubbard & Moffitt Commission Company be cancelled and declared void, and that said plaintiff have accounting of damages sustained by him in this behalf (so far as the same may be ascertained), including therein damages for the oppressive, fraudulent and unlawful and wrongful acts aforesaid of said defendants and each of them, and that plaintiff recover such damages aforesaid as may be so found to be justly due to him by each of said defendants respectively, and have such other and further relief as may be just, and that plaintiff have a temporary restraining order to the effect first above prayed, pending the litigation and until the further order of this court, upon such terms as may be just and equitable."

All the defendants named in this petition were made parties by personal service. The defendant, Merchants Exchange, duly answered. The other defendants, not having answered within a year after said service, a default was taken against them....