Etna Steel & Iron Co. v. Hamilton

• Decision Date: 17 July 1909
• Parties: ETNA STEEL & IRON CO. et al. v. HAMILTON.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

65 S.E. 145

133 Ga. 85

ETNA STEEL & IRON CO. et al. v. HAMILTON.

Supreme Court of Georgia

July 17, 1909

Syllabus by the Court.

As a general rule, where the court improvidently appoints a temporary receiver without notice to the defendant, and subsequently vacates the appointment, and the plaintiff voluntarily dismisses his petition, the receiver cannot have his compensation, nor that of his counsel, paid from the property temporarily in his custody. This case comes under the general rule.

Error from Superior Court, Polk County; Price Edwards, Judge.

Action by A. T. Hamilton against the Etna Steel & Iron Company and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants bring error. Reversed.

Mundy & Mundy, for plaintiffs in error.

Janes & Hutchens, Bun & Bun, and Trawick & Ault, for defendant in error.

EVANS P.J.

A. T Hamilton brought an equitable petition against the Etna Steel & Iron Company and T. N. Barnsdale for an accounting injunction, and receiver. In his petition the plaintiff alleged himself to be a minority stockholder of the Etna Steel & Iron Company, and also the owner of certain bonds of the company, and complained of certain acts of Barnsdale, the president of the company, and owner of a majority of its stock, as amounting to maladministration and intended to force the sale of the minority stock on very disadvantageous terms. It was also averred that the other directors of the company surrendered the management of the company's affairs to Barnsdale, and that the physical properties were so neglected that their value was being rapidly depreciated. On February 20, 1908, the judge passed an ex parte order enjoining the defendants as prayed, appointing J. M. Hunt as temporary receiver of all the property of the corporation and requiring the defendants to show cause why the receivership should not be made permanent. The defendants answered the petition on the rule to show cause; and, after hearing evidence, the court on April 28, 1908, revoked the appointment of the temporary receiver, and ordered him to restore to the Etna Iron & Steel Company the property located at Etna, Ga., but to retain in his hands all moneys received by him until the court could examine his accounts. The prayer for an injunction and the appointment of a permanent receiver was refused. On June 12, 1908, J. M. Hunt, the temporary receiver, petitioned the court for an allowance of compensation for himself and his attorney. The court heard evidence as to the character and value of the services rendered, and pending the hearing, on July 1, 1908, the plaintiff Hamilton voluntarily dismissed the original petition. The court in its order allowing fees, after reciting the voluntary withdrawal of the petition by the plaintiff, and adjudging that all the costs of the case except the costs of the temporary receiver and his attorneys, be taxed against the plaintiff, adjudged that the defendants pay the temporary receiver $350 and his attorney $150, and that the funds of the Etna Steel & Iron Company in the hands of the temporary receiver ($38...