Goodrich v. Williamson
| Decision Date | 25 August 1899 |
| Citation | 63 P. 974,10 Okla. 588,10 Okla. 617,1899 OK 99 |
| Parties | GOODRICH v. WILLIAMSON ET AL. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. This is an action upon a promissory note, brought by the assignee Goodrich, against Williamson, the maker, to recover the amount thereof. The defendant the Oklahoma National Bank intervened, charging that the note was executed by Williamson to M. I. Dowden in fraud of the creditors of E. W. Dowden, of whom the interpleader was one, and asked that the liability claimed in behalf of the plaintiff should be disallowed, and his claim thereto set aside, and the proceeds of the note awarded to the bank thus interpleading. Held, that this proceeding is not contemplated either by sections 36, 41, 45a, or 496 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and will not be permitted without the consent of the plaintiff.
2. In a legal action like the present, in which the plaintiff seeks nothing but a money judgment, he cannot be compelled to bring in and to admit other parties than those whom he has chosen as defendants.
3. In a case like this, in which the interpleader makes charges of fraud against M. I. Dowden and E. W. Dowden, and seeks to recover money alleged to be theirs from a third person, the Dowdens are necessary parties to the proceeding.
4. Section 43 of the Code of Civil Procedure does not justify the relief sought for by the defendant, Williamson, in filing his affidavit in this cause. Under this section of the statutes, in order to entitle him to the order of the court sought for and obtained below, there must have been a privity between all the parties, the debt claimed by the interpleader and the amount thereof must have been the same, and the claims of both the interpleader and the plaintiff must be strictly legal, and equitable claims are not provided for by the statute.
Upon reconsideration it is held that the defendant Williamson, having filed his affidavit in the case, which was in effect an answer and an admission of liability to the extent of the indebtedness then due upon the note sued upon the way was cleared for the order of the court as against him, which was a judgment against him for the specific amount of money demanded against him by the plaintiff, and that the judgment of the court should be, as to him, affirmed, and that he should be discharged from further liability.
Error from district court, Oklahoma county; before Justice J. R Keaton.
Action by D. M. Goodrich against T. W. Williamson. The Oklahoma National Bank filed an interplea. Judgment for interpleader. Plaintiff brings error. Modified.
This is a suit brought to recover the sum of $5,000, the amount of a promissory note dated August 17, 1895, given by the defendant, Williamson, to Mrs. M. I. Dowden, payable in a year, and assigned for value, as declared in the petition, on August 19, 1897, to Goodrich. The suit was begun September 23, 1896. Thereafter, on September 29, 1896, the Oklahoma National Bank, upon its own motion. and without leave, filed a pleading in the cause, which it termed an "interplea." This interplea averred that on December 13, 1895, it had recovered a judgment against E. W Dowden, the husband of M. I. Dowden, for the sum of $3,429; that an execution had been issued thereupon, and returned unsatisfied; that it had obtained another judgment for the sum of $7,634, with an attorney's fee of $500, upon April 8, 1895, in the same court, against James Geary, J. F. Stiles, and E. W. Dowden. Real estate was attached in that action, which was not disposed of at the time of the filing of the interplea. Execution was also issued, and was returned not satisfied. The averment further made was that on August 17, 1895, Williamson and E. W. Dowden were respectively owners of 125 shares of stock in the Dowden-Williamson Grocer Company; that Dowden's stock, with the exception of a single share, was held in the name of his wife, the defendant in the action; and that on that day Dowden made a pretended sale of his stock to Williamson for $21,000, of which $6,000 was cash, and the balance in three notes for $5,000 each, due in one, two, and three years, one of which is the note sued upon by Goodrich. It averred that the sale to Williamson was made for the purpose of hindering and defrauding creditors, and that the note for $5,000 sued upon here was fraudulently transferred to Goodrich, without consideration, and that there was then pending in the same court an action against E. W. Dowden, M. I. Dowden, and T. W. Williamson and the Dowden-Williamson Grocer Company to set aside the sale of the stock, and apply the same to the satisfaction of the judgments above mentioned. The prayer of the interplea was that when judgment was rendered against Williamson the Oklahoma National Bank, interpleading, should be subrogated to all the apparent rights of the plaintiff, Goodrich, in the collection of the judgment, and that the proceeds should be applied in satisfaction of the judgments of the bank. The plaintiff moved to strike the interplea from the files, which was overruled. His demurrer, which was then filed, was sustained, because the interplea, while asserting the invalidity of the transactions mentioned, also sought to uphold them upon other grounds; the interplea having been thereupon amended, and the prayer changed so as to ask that "if, in the event plaintiff fails in said cause [meaning the case pending to set aside the transfer of stock to Williamson as fraudulent, and subjected to the payment of judgments of the bank] to subject said stock to the payment of said indebtedness, that the interpleader be subrogated to all the apparent rights of the plaintiff." A demurrer to the amended interplea was overruled. Exceptions were reserved upon the rulings of the court overruling the motion to strike out the interplea and upon the demurrers. The plaintiff, Goodrich, then answered the interplea, denying the averments of fraud on his part, averring that the note sued upon was transferred to him in good faith and for value. The defendant, Williamson, before trial filed an affidavit in the cause in order to avail himself of section 3915 of the statutes of 1893, wherein he alleged that he executed the note in good faith; that the Oklahoma National Bank, without collusion with the defendant, made a claim to the subject of the action, and that the affiant was ready to pay the money due as the court should direct, and prayed that he be permitted to pay the amount into court, and be discharged from liability thereon. This prayer was granted over the objection and exception of the plaintiff, and the money paid into court, and the note surrendered to Williamson, in obedience to the mandate of the court. The defendant thereafter took no part in the action, which proceeded to trial before a jury on the issues formed by the interplea, the answer of the plaintiff, the amendment to the answer, and the reply of the bank.
Trimble & Braley, John A. Eaton, and H. H. Howard, for plaintiff in error.
R. G. Hays and J. S. Jenkins, for defendant in error Oklahoma Nat. Bank.
B. F. Burwell, for defendant in error T. W. Williamson.
McATEE, J. (after stating the facts).
The errors assigned by the plaintiff are argued upon the proposition that the action was a suit to recover the amount due upon a promissory note; that the bank should not have been permitted to intervene, and that Williamson should not have been permitted to pay the money into court, and that the note should not have been delivered to him. The provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure which are principally relied upon by the bank to sustain its right of intervention are sections 36 and 41 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which read as follows:
In construing similar provisions of the Codes of Civil Procedure the supreme courts of the different states have uniformly sustained the contention of the plaintiff in error. In Chapman v. Forbes, 123 N.Y. 532, 26 N.
E. 3 the plaintiff charged that George P. Breen, as agent of the plaintiff's testatrix, received $1,200, which was paid by him to defendant for the use of the estate of the plaintiff's testatrix, and that the defendant refused to pay the same to plaintiff. The defendant denied the indebtedness, and alleged that he received the money, but that it was the individual property of Thomas H. Breen, whose assignee had sued to recover it, and that the fund was subject to equities existing between Breen and the defendant; and the defendant moved to make Williams, the assignee of Thomas H. Breen, a party defendant, upon the ground that section 452 of the New York Code did not authorize the proceeding, and that the court could not change a legal action into a suit in equity at the instance of a third party, and against his will. The court, by Judge Peckham, now a justice of the supreme court of the United States, in construing the statute in question, said, as to section 122 of the New York Code (), that: "The decisions of our courts have been quite uniform that the section above quoted referred to parties in what, under the old practice, would have been suits in equity, and that it was never...
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Wood & Co. v. Wood
...but a money judgment is asked may not be compelled to admit other parties to the action than those he has chosen. Goodrich v. Williamson et al., 10 Okla. 588, 63 P. 974. ¶14 It follows that the lower court committed no error in sustaining the motion for judgment upon the pleadings in the re......