Knott v. Fisher Vehicle Woodstock & Lumber Co. of Erin

• Decision Date: 16 December 1916
• Docket Number: No. 1724.,1724.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals
• Parties: KNOTT v. FISHER VEHICLE WOODSTOCK & LUMBER CO. OF ERIN, ARK.

190 S.W. 378

KNOTT v. FISHER VEHICLE WOODSTOCK & LUMBER CO. OF ERIN, ARK.

No. 1724.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

December 16, 1916.

Rehearing Denied January 1, 1917.

Appeal from Circuit Court, New Madrid County; Sterling H. McCarty, Judge.

Attachment by W. D. Knott against the Fisher Vehicle Woodstock & Lumber Company, a Missouri corporation, wherein the Fisher Vehicle Woodstock & Lumber Company of Erin, Arkansas, filed an interplea. Judgment for plaintiff, and interpleader appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

Riley & Riley, of New Madrid, for appellant. Thomas Gallivan, of New Madrid, for respondent.

STURGIS, J.

This is an interplea ingrafted on an attachment suit. The defendant in the attachment is the Fisher Vehicle Woodstock & Lumber Company, a Missouri corporation, and the interpleader is a corporation of Arkansas with practically the same name. For convenience we will designate the defendant as the Missouri corporation and the interpleader as the Arkansas corporation. The Missouri corporation became indebted to plaintiff, and he brought suit and attached the property of interpleader, some woodworking machinery, as defendant's property, and the Arkansas corporation has interpleaded claiming ownership. A. B. Fisher purchased this attached machinery from an Indiana manufacturing company and mortgaged it back to secure $2,500 of the purchase price. Fisher then helped organize the Missouri corporation, which took over the property subject to the mortgage which had been duly recorded. The Missouri corporation became involved in debt and made default in the payment of this mortgage debt. The mortgage was foreclosed by the holder of the note, an Indiana bank, and that bank became the purchaser and owner of the machinery. Fisher then helped organize the Arkansas corporation, and the Indiana bank sold this machinery to it. Plaintiff, a creditor of the Missouri corporation, attached this property of the Arkansas corporation as belonging to the former.

No attack is made on the validity of the mortgage, the proper foreclosure of the same, or on the title of the Indiana bank under its purchase at the foreclosure. The claim is, as stated in the plaintiff's instruction, that Fisher and his wife incorporated the interpleader, the Arkansas corporation, and "took over the property without consideration for the purpose of defrauding this man W. D. Knott," plaintiff herein. The evidence clearly shows, however, that the Arkansas corporation paid $1,200 for this machinery, $400 in cash and two notes of $400 each with good personal security.

The transfer which plaintiff attacks as fraudulent is not a transfer of his debtor's property or property which would be liable for his debt. Prior to the foreclosure of the...