Anderson v. Fid. & Deposit Co. Of Baltimore

• Decision Date: 29 March 1897
• Citation: 100 Ga. 739,28 S.E. 463
• Parties: ANDERSON et al. v. FIDELITY & DEPOSIT CO. OF BALTIMORE et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

28 S.E. 463

100 Ga. 739

ANDERSON et al.

v.FIDELITY & DEPOSIT CO. OF BALTIMORE et al.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

March 29, 1897.

Receivers— Compensation of Attorney.

1. Where all the assets of a corporation were in the hands of a receiver, and services were rendered by an attorney at law not employed by the receiver, but employed by the corporation, without leave of the court, which services availed nothing either in saving or increasing the assets, such attorney is not entitled to compensation out of the fund in the hands of the receiver.

2. Where a receiver has counsel who appears for him in resistance to a motion to remove him, other counsel, employed by a person other than the receiver, to aid in this resistance and aiding accordingly, is not entitled to compensation out of the corporate effects.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court, Bibb county; W. H. Felton, Jr., Judge.

In the matter of the receivership of the Macon Construction Company, Anderson & Anderson petition for compensation for services as attorneys. From the judgment rendered in favor of the Fidelity & Deposit Company of Baltimore and others, creditors of the corporation bring error. Affirmed.

Anderson & Anderson, in pro. per.

Washington Dessan, Bacon, Miller & Branson, Hall & Hammond, Hoke Smith, and H. C. Peeples, for defendants in error.

SIMMONS, C. J. In March, 1891, the Macon Construction Company was placed in the hands of a receiver. This company seems to have owned all the stock in the Georgia, Southern & Florida Railroad Company and in the Macon & Birmingham Railroad Company. These two railroads were also placed in the hands of the same receiver. On the 18th of February, 1892, the board of directors of the Macon Construction Company employed Anderson & Anderson as general counsel to represent the construction company in the pending litigation, but no order of the court was obtained authorizing this employment. In pursuance of this employment, Anderson & Anderson represented the construction company in the litigation. The two railroad companies had issued a large number of bonds, and to secure them had given a mortgage to a certain trust company. The Macon Construction Company claimed that the bonds issued and the mortgages given by the railroad companies were invalid for reasons set out in its pleas, which are not here necessary to mention, and also filed pleas of usury. These pleas were filed by Anderson & Anderson, trial was had thereon in the lower court, and the pleas were not sustained The case was brought to this court, and the judgment of the lower court was affirmed. 21 S. E. 701. Anderson & Anderson also represented the construction company in resisting an effort on the part of the bondholders to discharge Sparks, the receiver, and to substitute another in his place. These services were rendered with the knowledge and consent of the officers of the two railroad companies, one of the officers of the Georgia, Southern & Florida Railroad Company swearing to the pleas filed in its behalf, and in behalf of the Macon Construction Company, by Anderson & Anderson. Other services were rendered by these counsel in the course of their employment to the construction company and to the railroad companies. It appears from the evidence, however, that the services of these counsel did not bring a dollar into the fund, nor prevent a dollar from being paid out by the receiver which should not have been paid. After several years of litigation, the court ordered the properties of the two railroad...