Kelleam v. Maryland Casualty Co of Baltimore, Md

• Decision Date: 17 February 1941
• Docket Number: No. 349,349
• Citation: 61 S.Ct. 595,312 U.S. 377,85 L.Ed. 899
• Parties: KELLEAM et al. v. MARYLAND CASUALTY CO. OF BALTIMORE, MD., et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

312 U.S. 377

61 S.Ct. 595

85 L.Ed. 899

KELLEAM et al.

v MARYLAND CASUALTY CO. OF BALTIMORE, MD., et al.

No. 349.

Argued Feb. 5, 1941.

Decided Feb. 17, 1941.

Messrs. Glenn O. Young, of Sapulpa, Okl., and Warren E. Miller, of Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Mr. W. E. Green, of Tulsa, Okl., for respondent Maryland Casualty Co.

Mr. Heber Finch, of Sapulpa, Okl., for respondents Mrs. Ethel Riddler and others.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

This controversy has its origin in a probate proceeding in an Oklahoma court. Petitioner, E. A. Kelleam, was administrator in that proceeding. Respondent, Maryland Casualty Company, was surety on his bond. The probate court held that all of decedent's property was a maternal ancestral estate to which the full-blood heirs, E. A. Kelleam and Nell Southard, were entitled to the exclusion of the half-blood heirs, the individual respondents here. Such distribution was ordered and the administrator and Maryland Casualty Company were discharged from further liability. No appeal was taken; but shortly thereafter the half-blood heirs brought an action in the Oklahoma court to set aside that decree, alleging that petitioners E. A. Kelleam and Nell Southard had perpetrated a fraud upon the probate court and that the half-bloods were entitled to participation, the estate being a general not an ancestral estate. A demurrer to the complaint was sustained and an appeal was taken to the Oklahoma District Court where it is now pending. After that suit had been commenced¹ respondent-surety, learning that E. A. Kelleam and Nell Southard had transferred some of the property received from the estate,² brought this suit in the United States District Court, joining the full-bloods and the half-bloods as defendants and invoking federal jurisdiction on the basis of diversity of citizenship. In this suit in equity³ respondent-surety sought exoneration on its bond, alleged that its remedy at law was inadequate, and prayed that a receiver be appointed to preserve the decedent's property pending the outcome of the dispute between the heirs, and that the parties be required to set up whatever claims they might have to the property. By their answer and cross-petition, the half-bloods renewed their claims of fraud in the probate decree and joined in the prayer for the appointment of a receiver. The answers of petitioners alleged, inter alia, lack of jurisdiction in the federal court by reason of the action in the state court; and they moved to strike the cross-petition for lack of jurisdiction. By an amendment to its bill respondent-surety added allegations charging fraud in the probate decree. The District Court found that petitioners E. A. Kelleam and Nell Southard, knowing of the existence of the other heirs, fraudulently concealed those facts from the probate court, gave no notice to the other heirs as required by law, and represented that E. A. Kelleam was a resident of Oklahoma when he was not; that the administrator failed to appoint a service agent as required by Oklahoma statutes; that the estate was fraudulently represented as an ancestral estate and that petitioners E. A. Kelleam and Nell Southard in furtherance of the plan to defraud the half-bloods consummated a settlement with some of them in exchange for their agreement not to contest the probate decree; that that decree, having been obtained by fraud, was void as to the half-bloods; that the intermediate conveyances by petitioners E. A. Kelleam and Nell Southard were fraudulent; that the remaining assets of the estate were in danger of being dissipated; that respondent-surety would become liable to the half-bloods for failure of the administrator to perform his duties; and that the property should be preserved pending a final order of accounting. Accordingly, it appointed a receiver, decreed that respondent-surety was entitled to exoneration by having designated property applied to the satisfaction of the interests of the half-bloods, decreed that the half-bloods were owners of designated undivided interests in the estate, established a lien thereon, and ordered petitioners E. A. Kelleam and Nell Southard to account. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. 10 Cir., 112 F.2d 940. We granted certiorari, 311 U.S. 627, 61 S.Ct. 48, 85 L.Ed. —-, because of the challenged propriety of the action of the District Court in appointing a receiver and in adjudicating matters at issue in the state court.

We think the bill should have been dismissed.

The essential purpose of the bill was to secure the appointment of a receiver so as to conserve the property and to impress it with a lien for the surety's protection. The surety had no stake in the outcome of the dispute among the heirs beyond its contingent right to exoneration. In this posture of the case it is manifest that respondent-surety sought the receivership not as a means to an end but as an end in itself. The receivership was ancillary only in the sense that it was protective of the surety whatever the future outcome of the controversy between the heirs. The surety was not presently liable on its bond; its liability and its right to exoneration were wholly contingent, being dependent on a successful attack on the probate decree by the half-bloods. That attack was currently being made in the state court.

Accordingly, a receiver should not have been appointed. The error in the appointment was not a question of authority but of propriety. Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U.S. 176, 55 S.Ct. 380, 79 L.Ed. 841, 96 A.L.R. 1166; Gordon v. Washington, 295 U.S. 30, 55 S.Ct. 584, 79 L.Ed. 1282. As this Court stated in the Gordon case (295 U.S. page 37, 55 S.Ct. page 588, 79 L.Ed. 1282): 'A receivership is only a means to reach some legitimate end sought through the exercise of the power of a court of equity. It is not an end in itself.' Receiverships for conservation of property 'are to be watched with jealous eyes lest their function be perverted.' Michigan v. Michigan Trust Co., 286 U.S. 334, 345, 52 S.Ct. 512, 515, 76 L.Ed. 1136. This Court has frequently admonished that a federal court of equity should not appoint a receiver where the appointment is not a remedy auxiliary to some primary relief which is sought and which equity may appropriately grant. Booth v. Clark, 17 How. 322, 331, 15 L.Ed. 164; Pusey & Jones Co. v. Hanssen, 261 U.S. 491, 43 S.Ct. 454, 67 L.Ed. 763; Gordon v. Washington, supra. And...