Brown v. First State Bank

• Decision Date: 14 December 1917
• Docket Number: (No. 7471.)
• Citation: 199 S.W. 895
• Parties: BROWN v. FIRST STATE BANK OF WEIMAR et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

199 S.W. 895

BROWN v. FIRST STATE BANK OF WEIMAR et al.

(No. 7471.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Galveston.

December 14, 1917.

Rehearing Denied January 3, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, Fayette County; Frank S. Roberts, Judge.

Action by L. D. Brown, trustee in bankruptcy of the estate of Staches Vacek, a bankrupt, against the First State Bank of Weimar, Tex., and the Schuhmacher Company. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

C. D. Krause, of La Grange, for appellant. Lane, Wolters & Storey, of Houston, for appellees.

GRAVES, J.

This is purely a fact case. The only issue in the trial court was: Did appellees, or either of them, have reasonable cause to believe that the enforcment of the deeds of trust and the payment of the $1,119.78 in cash to the appellees Schuhmacher Company would effect a preference to them over other creditors of Vacek? That court, by its general judgment in appellees' favor, having necessarily found that the evidence failed to show that they did have reasonable cause for such belief, obviously the sole issue presented by the appeal from that judgment to this court is whether or not the trial court was warranted in reaching that conclusion.

Appellant, as trustee of Vacek's bankrupt estate, brought the suit against appellees to set aside and have declared void as preferences, within the meaning and contemplation of the federal bankruptcy act of 1910, two deeds of trust given by the bankrupt, Staches Vacek, to appellees, and a cash payment of $1,119.78 made by him to one of them, the Schuhmacher Company. Trial was had before the court without a jury, and judgment rendered that appellant take nothing by his suit, and that appellees go hence and recover their costs.

No findings of fact nor conclusions of law were requested or filed; but the parties filed in the court below an agreed stipulation as to facts, in which the material specifications were: (1) That Vacek was a bankrupt; (2) that within four months of his adjudication as such, he executed to appellees two deeds of trust, one to the bank for $3,500, $1,500 of which represented an antecedent debt due it, and the remaining $2,000 money loaned at that time by it to him, and the other to appellee Schuhmacher Company for $1,250 on the same date, also making to the latter the cash payment above mentioned; (3) that the appellees, through these deeds of trust and this cash payment, would realize a greater percentage of their debts than Vacek's other creditors; and (4) that at the time of the execution and delivery of the deeds of trust and payment of the money Vacek was insolvent; but it was not admitted, but expressly denied by the appellees First State Bank of Weimer, Tex., and the Schuhmacher Company that they, or either of them, had reasonable...