In re Haley

• Decision Date: 21 December 1889
• Citation: 12 S.W. 667,99 Mo. 150
• Parties: In re HALEY.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

12 S.W. 667

99 Mo. 150

In re HALEY.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

December 21, 1889.

RECEIVERS — CONTEMPT.

A receiver appointed in an attachment suit begun in the common pleas and transferred to the circuit court of another county, becomes an officer of the latter court, and for disobedience to its orders to account, is liable to be punished by it for contempt.

Petition for writ of habeas corpus.

W. H. Morrow, for petitioner. D. A. Ball, for respondent.

SHERWOOD, J.

Estes brought suit by attachment in the Louisiana court of common pleas in Pike county, against Jacob Fry. The petitioner was appointed receiver by that court, and in that capacity, from the sale of growing crops, attached as the property of Fry, collected, exclusive of commissions, $400.91. After the appointment of the receiver the cause was removed to St. Charles county, and finally to Ralls county, where the attachment suit was abated; and the receiver, upon the order of the circuit court for the last-named county, filed his report, showing the balance in his hands to be the sum aforesaid. Thereupon that court ordered him to pay that amount to the personal representatives of the deceased defendant. This order, though duly notified thereof, he failed to obey, without offering any excuse for such failure. Upon this, the attorneys of the personal representatives of the defendant served a notice on the petitioner, notifying him that they would move for an attachment against him for failing to obey the order of the court. Some three weeks thereafter, the petitioner having failed to appear pursuant to the notice, and having continued to fail to comply with the previous order of the court, that court made an order reciting in detail the facts aforesaid, adjudged him guilty of a contempt, directed that an attachment issue against him, and that he be confined in the county jail unless he should, on or before the 15th of October next thereafter, purge his contempt by complying with the order to pay over the money in his hands, and requiring the sheriff to confine him in the jail until he obeyed. The order last named was duly served on the petitioner on the 1st day of November, 1889. The sheriff made demand upon him for the payment of the money; and he, still declining to pay, was, on the 11th day of that month, attached and committed to prison, from which he seeks to be released by the present writ.

The transfer of the cause by change of venue took with it the whole cause, and every...