Ex parte Harvill, B--164

• Decision Date: 24 May 1967
• Docket Number: No. B--164,B--164
• Citation: 415 S.W.2d 174
• Parties: Ex parte J. B. HARVILL, Relator.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 174

415 S.W.2d 174

Ex parte J. B. HARVILL, Relator.

No. B--164.

Supreme Court of Texas.

May 24, 1967.

McWhirter & Braswell, Henry Braswell, Paris, for relator.

Raymond R. Johnson, Sulphur Springs, G. C. Butler, Bonham, for respondent.

STEAKLEY, Justice.

This is an original habeas corpus proceeding. The background facts are these. In cause No. 25,226 in the 62nd Judicial District Court of Lamar County, Texas, Carrie Lee Smith sued her husband, Ben Ray Smith and Granville C. Farmer and the Liberty National Bank in Paris. The suit was for divorce, the adjudication of certain property rights and a division of the community estate. A final decree was entered under date of June 5, 1965. J. D. Beaty was appointed receiver to take charge of all the property, real and personal, comprising the community estate of Carrie Lee Smith and Ben Ray Smith. Included in such properties was a tract of land situated in Lamar and Red River Counties, consisting of 2,148.744 acres, more or less. Farmer had asserted a claim against this property under a deed from Ben Ray Smith but was decreed to have no claim, right, title or interest therein, the jury having found that the deed, if any, from Smith to him was a fraudulent conveyance. The receiver sought to take possession of the property but found Relator in possession. Relator refused to yield possession and on February 28, 1967, the receiver filed a contempt complaint against him. Relator, who is a licensed attorney of Texas, was not a named party in the prior divorce proceeding but did appear therein as an appeal counsel for Farmer in the application for writ of error filed in his behalf. Relator was ordered to show cause in the contempt proceeding and hearing was held on March 10, 1967, at the conclusion of which Relator was adjudged guilty of direct and constructive contempt, assessed a fine of $100.00 and ordered confined in jail for three days and continuously thereafter 'until he shall purge himself of contempt of court by delivering into the possession of the receiver the aforementioned property and by ceasing and causing to be ceased by himself and all others under his control and direction, all interference with the receiver's possession and control of said property.' Relator thereupon filed his petition for writ of habeas corpus which was granted by this court on March 14, 1967.

Relator testified in the contempt hearing that he leased the property from Farmer in 1959 since which time he has been in management and possession thereof; that the lease is not of record; that Farmer was in possession of the property at the time of the lease to him; that he paid rent to Farmer on the property 'until a few months ago;' and that he did in fact refuse to yield possession to the receiver. This testimony was not disputed. Moreover, upon finding Relator in possession of the property the receiver did not bring suit to try title or gain possession by any of the accepted forms of action such as suit in trespass to try title to forcible entry and detainer. As a result, Relator's right of possession as a claimed lessee has not been adjudicated in any form of action in which he has been named as a party and thereby afforded the ordinary incidents of civil litigation such as the right to a jury trial. Our question, then, is whether the coercive summary contempt proceeding utilized against Relator in the manner and under the circumstances here shown afforded him due process of law. We hold that it did not.

It was, of course, the duty of the receiver to take possession and control of the property in question since it was specifically described in the decree as included in the community estate of Carrie Lee Smith and Ben Ray Smith. It is the well-settled rule, however, that a receiver cannot ordinarily take into custody through summary proceedings property found in the possession of strangers to the record who claim adversely. Ex Parte Renfro, 115 Tex. 82, 273 S.W. 813, 40 A.L.R. 900 (1925). We there held a contempt punishment order void as denying due process, saying, upon the basis of extensive citations:

'The ordinary course to pursue in such cases where a receiver desires to obtain possession of property in the hands of a stranger to the receivership suit, claiming adversely, is either for the receiver to bring an action against the third party, or for the plaintiff to make him a party to the suit and have the receivership extended to him. Contempt proceedings are not appropriate.'

Ex Parte Renfro has become a leading case on this question. It is the subject of an annotation in 40 A.L.R. at p. 900 and is cited in 2 Clark on Receivers, 3rd ed., chapt. XXI, 636, p. 1049, where the rule is stated as follows:

'When the party against whom action is asserted is not a party to the main case,...