In re Carter-Williams Grain & Coal Co.

• Decision Date: 27 March 1924
• Docket Number: 244.
• Parties: In re CARTER-WILLIAMS GRAIN & COAL CO. CARTER v. STOCK.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

297 F. 441

In re CARTER-WILLIAMS GRAIN & COAL CO. CARTER v. STOCK.

No. 244.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

March 27, 1924

Bart M Lockwood, of St. Joseph, Mo., for petitioner.

Frank P. Barker, of Kansas City, Mo. (Arthur Miller and Miller Camack, Winger & Reeder, all of Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for respondent.

Before LEWIS, Circuit Judge, and SYMES and PHILLIPS, District Judges.

LEWIS Circuit Judge.

This is an original petition under Section 24b of the Bankruptcy Act (Comp. St. Sec. 9608), which gives to this court jurisdiction 'to superintend and revise in matter of law the proceedings of the several inferior courts of bankruptcy ' The petition discloses that George W. Carter, a resident of St. Joseph, Missouri, had been ordered to pay over to the trustee of the bankrupt estate of Carter-Williams Grain & Coal Company, then pending on settlement in the St. Joseph Division of the Western District of Missouri, certain sums of money belonging to that estate, and that he had failed to comply with that order within the time limited, that Carter was then served with an order to show cause, returnable December 26, 1922, if any he had, why he should not be punished for contempt on account of his failure to pay over the money as directed, that thereafter and on December 26, 1922, an order was entered adjudging him in contempt for his failure, and he was thereupon committed to jail. The order finding him in contempt is alleged to have been made erroneously as a matter of law and the commitment is said to be invalid, that the former was entered and the latter issued without jurisdiction in the court to do either-- because the order to show cause issued out of the Western Division instead of out of the St. Joseph Division of the Western District, and commanded the petitioner to appear before the Judge of the Bankruptcy Court in the Western Division instead of in the St. Joseph Division, and the order of contempt was entered in the Western Division and the commitment issued from that division.

The response of the trustee in bankruptcy alleges that all applications, orders and pleadings complained of were in truth and in fact entered and filed in the cause of Carter-Williams Grain & Coal Company, bankrupt, pending in the St. Joseph Division for the Western District, that Carter was accorded a hearing on the return of the order to show cause and thereupon adjudged to be in contempt for not having complied with the previous order to pay over the money to the trustee. Certified copies of the order to show cause, of the order adjudging Carter in contempt and of the writ of commitment were all filed in the St. Joseph Division, as shown upon the face of them. The order to show cause directed that Carter 'appear in this court at 10 o'clock a.m on December 26, 1922. ' There was no further designation of the place of appearance. The Marshal's return of service was also filed in that Division. The commitment appears to have been issued by the clerk at the Kansas City office in the Western Division; but he is clerk of the entire district, including all divisions. The statute requires that he shall have a deputy in the office of the St. Joseph Division, and all writs that issue from the office of any division are attested in his name. It thus seems that all allegations of the petition here, that the proceedings in contempt were had in the Western and not in the St. Joseph Division are without support and are contrary to the record. They will be laid to one side. It is alleged, however, that the hearing on the order to show cause was in fact had at Kansas City in the Western Division. But there is no proof of that allegation. The contempt order recites that Carter appeared in person and by counsel and that the cause came on for hearing on the order to show cause, that Carter failed to show cause why he should not be adjudged in contempt and fined for failure to comply with the prior order, that the court found that all of the moneys which it had directed Carter to pay to the trustee were still in his possession and under his control, that they were the...