Hill v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 01 December 1913
• Docket Number: 2488.
• Citation: 210 F. 200
• Parties: HILL et al. v. WILSON et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

210 F. 200

HILL et al. v. WILSON et al.

No. 2488.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

December 1, 1913

On Application for Rehearing, January 20, 1914.

Perry G. Dedmon and Wm. J. Berne, both of Ft. Worth, Tex., for appellants.

Maurice E. Locke, of Dallas, Tex., and Byrd E. White, of Lancaster Tex., for appellees.

Before PARDEE and SHELBY, Circuit Judges, and CALL, District Judge.

PER CURIAM.

The decrees appealed from in this case are amended so as to read 'without prejudice,' and as amended affirmed, with costs.

On Application for Rehearing.

The judge below gave no written reasons for his decree dismissing the bills in this case; but we gathered from the arguments at the bar that counsel understood that the reasons were want of equity, multifariousness, misjoinder of parties, and want of necessary parties, as well as conflict between the original complainants and the intervener-complainant.

Form our investigation we found that neither Christopher C. Wilson nor his trustee in bankruptcy is made a party defendant to the bill of complaint filed by the plaintiffs Hill and others, whereas the whole foundation of the claim set up in the said bill is based upon frauds practiced by Christopher C. Wilson upon the plaintiff's bankrupt, and the liability of Christopher C. Wilson must be established before any question can arise as to whether there was a trust constructive or resulting in favor of the United Wireless Telegraph Company and growing out of Christopher C Wilson's transactions with the said company. The after-appearance by intervention of the trustee of Christopher C. Wilson joining with the original complainant in the prosecution of the original bill does not eliminate this difficulty.

It may be further noticed that the original bill supplemented by the intervention does not sufficiently establish that the bankrupt corporation was defrauded. The original bill charges that Christopher C. Wilson, the president and director and member of the executive committee of the United Wireless Telegraph Company, about February 15, 1907, obtained a large amount of the stock of the United Wireless Telegraph Company to wit, 423,000 shares of common stock and 176,000 shares of preferred stock; the consideration being the surrender by the said Wilson to the United Wireless Telegraph Company of certificates of an equal amount of stock, common and preferred, of the American De Forest...