Boinay v. Coats

• Decision Date: 20 October 1868
• Citation: 17 Mich. 411
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Casimir P. Boinay v. Wm. Coats

17 Mich. 411

Casimir P. Boinay v. Wm. Coats

Supreme Court of Michigan

October 20, 1868

Heard October 15, 1868 [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material]

Appeal in chancery from Wayne circuit.

The bill in this cause was filed to enjoin defendant from disturbing complainant's possession of certain premises by virtue of certain proceedings at law which defendant had instituted.

An ex parte injunction was granted by a circuit court commissioner on the affidavit of complainant.

The defendant entered a motion in the circuit court to dissolve the same. The complainant also notified the defendant that at the hearing of the same, he would ask the court that an injunction be granted by the court upon the bill, and that certain proceedings at law in said court be stayed.

The court dissolved the injunction, and refused complainant's motion; whereupon complainant appealed.

Order affirmed, with costs.

Levi Bishop, for complainant:

1. This case may be determined upon familiar principles of elementary law.

The injunction prayed was the sole object sought by the bill.

The injunction was allowed by a commissioner, and the defendant without making any defense whatever to the suit, moved to dissolve the injunction, and resisted the motion made by the complainant for another, if the one already issued should be dissolved.

2. In such a proceeding the bill is taken as admitted to be true by the defendant. It is in fact equivalent to a demurrer ore tenus.

And not only is the bill in such case admitted to be true, but every intendment and deduction, which can be fairly drawn from its language, taken in its plain and ordinary sense, is to prevail against him who makes the admission: Hilliard on Injunctions, Chap. 3, §§ 12, 20, 23, 25; Walker Ch., 9.

3. Whatever might be the legal rights of Mr. Coats and Mr. Campan inter sese, of which the complainant had no notice, and with which he had nothing to do, he sets forth strong grounds for relief by injunction, for the reasons, amongst others, set forth by this court in the case of Campau against Coats, that "new rights had accrued" in his favor, and an "innocent party had obtained rights," which ought to be protected: 17 Mich. 235.

4. This was not a bill to stay proceedings at law, which takes place only between parties to the suit at law, or by or on behalf of some party or parties thereto.

It is a bill to prevent irreparable injury from threatened proceedings under color of law, and under color of official authority.

It is, therefore, in its principal features a bill quia timet, brought because we fear the threatened injury.

In this view the objection, that the injunction was allowed without notice under rule 112, had no force.

Or, if it had force, still our motion for an injunction, to be allowed by the court at the hearing, ought to have been allowed.

5. An appeal lies from both parts of this order, viz.: That part dissolving the injunction, and that part by which another was refused.

That order involved the whole merits of the case, as did the discussion of the motions by which it was elicited.

Injunctions and receivers stand upon the same footing. As a general thing, both are but ancillary to the more general relief sought by the suit. The one takes property into the hands of the court by its officer; the other holds the property where it is in the hands of the party.

When such are their object and character, their allowance or disallowance is a matter which rests in the sound discretion of the court, and no appeal lies, in such case, from its action.

But when the injunction or receiver is the principal object of the bill, especially when such is its only object, and when that object involves the merits of the controversy, then the order allowing, or disallowing, the one or the other, becomes a final order, from which an appeal lies to this court: Hilliard on Injunctions, chap. 3, § 15; 14 Mich. 458; 15 Id. 415.

We ask that the order dissolving the injunction may be reversed; that such injunction may be declared in force; that we may have an injunction as prayed in our bill, and that we may have such other order and directions in the case as may restore us to our rights, and protect us in them.

S. T. Douglass, and C. J. O'Flynn, for defendant:

1. The order appealed from is not a final order or decree: C. L., § 3596; 10 Mich. 398.

2. There is no equity in the bill.

1. Assuming the sufficiency of its averments to show that complainant was a bona fide purchaser, then the equities of the parties are equal, and a court of equity will assist neither of them. It never interferes in behalf of a bona fide purchaser who is not within the purview of the recording acts, to prevent the true owner from asserting his rights at law: 18 Johns. 544, 62, 66; Lead. Cas. in Eq., 2 pt., pp. 88, 89, 94.

Unless, perhaps, where the circumstances are such as to affect the conscience of the defendant, which is not this case: Id., 88.

And the complainant is clearly not within the protection of the recording acts: C. L., § 2748.

2. The averments of the bill are insufficient to show that complainant was a bona fide purchaser.

a. The bill does not show that the Campau executors had, or pretended to have, any title: Lead. Cas. in Eq., 2 pt., pp. 77, 93, 95, 102; 4 Russ. 514.

b. Or deny notice, except vaguely and evasively. Or aver that anything was paid or expended on account of the lease, before the judgment in favor of the executor was set aside, and complainant...