Amos v. Powell

• Decision Date: 25 January 1933
• Citation: 146 So. 195,108 Fla. 139
• Parties: AMOS, Comptroller v. POWELL.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

146 So. 195

108 Fla. 139

AMOS, Comptroller v. POWELL.

Florida Supreme Court

January 25, 1933

En Banc.

Certiorari to Circuit Court, Duval County; De Witt T. Gray, Judge.

Suit by George M. Powell, to whom the liquidator of the Farmers' Bank & Trust Company was ordered to pay a certain amount. To review this decree, Ernest Amos, as State Comptroller, who was not a party defendant to the suit, but who alleges that he was adversely affected by the decree, brings certiorari.

Writ quashed.

COUNSEL Doggett, McCollum, Howell & Doggett, of Jacksonville, for petitioner.

George M. Powell, of Jacksonville, for respondent.

OPINION

DAVIS Chief Justice.

George M. Powell, an attorney at law, brought suit in equity alleging in his bill that he was entitled to enforce a lien for attorney's fees on certain specific asset of a defunct bank, Farmers' Bank & Trust Company, namely, a $10,500 warrant of Lake Ashby drainage district, that had been placed in the attorney's hands for collection, at a time when the bank was a going banking institution.

The chancellor decreed in favor of a lien upon the warrant for the attorney's fees sued for, and ordered the liquidator of the defunct bank to pay off the amount decreed to be due, out of any funds in his hands as liquidator, upon which happening the complainant attorney was required to deliver up the warrant which he held and upon which the lien was decreed.

The case is now before this court on a writ of certiorari which was granted on petition of the state comptroller, who was not made a party defendant on the record of the equity suit, but who alleges he was adversely affected by the decree.

Our conclusion is that the writ of certiorari must be quashed because the decree against the liquidator of a defunct state bank is under the law legally binding upon the comptroller whose legal representative the liquidator is, with respect to all litigation brought against the liquidator as the comptroller's representative.

Liquidators of state banks are under the laws of this state representatives of the state comptroller. Florida Bank &amp Trust Co. v. Yaffey, 102 Fla. 723, 136 So. 399. Decrees and judgments may therefore be rendered against such liquidators in suits brought against them in their representative capacity as such, although the comptroller is not directly made a party to such suits. With regard to the function of liquidators, the comptroller has complete discretionary power over them at all times, even though the liquidators themselves in their representative capacity take title to the assets and affairs of the defunct institution over which they are appointed. Tomassello v. Murphy, 100 Fla. 132, 129 So. 328.

The comptroller is therefore not a necessary, but simply a proper, party to suits involving the 'affairs' of a defunct bank turned over to the management of a liquidator. The decisions reported in recent cases before this court will substantiate the view that by common acceptation in all such reported cases, this ruling principle has been followed without challenge, a persuasive, if not controlling, circumstance, justifying the conclusion just expressed, now that the point is before us for decision.

Inasmuch as the comptroller is bound by judgments and decrees rendered against his duly appointed, qualified, and acting liquidator with respect to the assets and affairs of the defunct Farmers'...