Kruegel v. Murphy

• Decision Date: 26 February 1910
• Parties: KRUEGEL v. MURPHY et al.<SMALL><SUP>†</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

126 S.W. 343

KRUEGEL v. MURPHY et al.^†

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

February 26, 1910.

On Rehearing, March 19, 1910.

Appeal from District Court, Dallas County; E. B. Muse, Judge.

Suit by Herman Kruegel against J. P. Murphy and others. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Herman Kruegel, for appellant. Cobb & Avery and Thompson & Word, for appellees.

RAINEY, C. J.

On November 7, 1907, Herman Kruegel filed suit in the Forty-Fourth judicial district court, Dallas county, against J. P. Murphy and Charles F. Bolanz, partners, the Murphy Bolanz Land & Loan Company, a corporation, Cobb & Avery, lawyers, Thomas F. Nash and Richard Morgan, district judges, H. W. Jones, district clerk, and his surety, Royal A. Ferris, Ed. S. Lauderdale, county judge, Dallas county, E. T. Loughborough, assignee of Murphy & Bolanz, and his sureties, T. P. Barry, J. T. Trezevant, the executor of W. C. Howard and T. W. Scollard, Watts, Aldridge & Eckford, a law firm, J. M. Pearson, district judge, A. B. Rawlins, district clerk, and sureties, Royal A. Ferris, E. M. Reardon, A. V. Lane, and G. W. Owens, seeking to recover damages, actual and exemplary, for unlawfully conspiring to defraud him by preventing him from recovering in litigation theretofore had. Exceptions, general and special, as to limitation, res adjudicata, and misjoinder of parties and actions were sustained to the petition and trial amendment, and judgment rendered that plaintiff take nothing and pay the costs of suit, from which judgment Kruegel appeals.

The first 4½ pages, typewritten, of plaintiff's petition, consists of a general charge of corruption, fraud, conspiracy, and combination between the lawyer and judicial officers and other parties of Dallas county that have prevented the administration of the laws of the land by the state courts, plaintiff being one of their victims, but no parties are named nor any specific act set forth. The petition then sets out, in general, the dealings of Murphy & Bolanz as real estate brokers and investment bankers, of their securing the confidence of the people and failing in business with several hundred thousand dollars of other people's money in their hands; of their making a fraudulent assignment for the benefit of creditors with E. T. Loughborough as assignee; of the assignee's failure to take charge of the property, but allowed the assignors to appropriate the same to their own use, and then concealed the fraud by a false and fraudulent final report of said assignment in the county court of Dallas county; of Murphy & Bolanz filing petitions in voluntary bankruptcy, through their counsel, Watts, Aldridge & Eckford, without surrendering any property; of there being an abundance of assets assigned, and that plaintiff did not accept under the assignment, but brought suit for his claim for $1,318.60 in the Fourteenth district court, Dallas county, on March 17, 1894, and recovered judgment, which still exists; of the assignment terminating by the assignee filing a false and fraudulent report without paying a single dollar to creditors or surrendering any property or surplus to the court; of Murphy & Bolanz being adjudged bankrupts and discharged June 8, 1899; of Cobb & Avery and J. J. Eckford, as lawyers of Murphy & Bolanz, having advised and knowing of the pretended and fraudulent assignment, that Cobb & Avery purchased certain business property from the said assignee for the consideration of $1, which purchase was a notorious fraud upon the creditors, and more particularly on plaintiff and could not have been discovered sooner by this plaintiff; of Nash, Morgan, and Pearson being elected and qualifying as district judges of the Fourteenth, Forty-Fourth and Fifty-Ninth districts, respectively; of H. W. Jones being elected district clerk for two years in 1902; of A. B. Rawlins being elected district clerk in 1904.

Plaintiff further alleged, in substance: That on January 15, 1901, soon after discovering Murphy & Bolanz's fraudulent assignment beyond a doubt, and of the fraudulent final report of the assignee, and the conspiracy between said assignee, Cobb & Avery, Murphy & Bolanz, and others, he filed a meritorious suit against Murphy & Bolanz as a firm and as individuals, the Southern Investment Company, Murphy & Bolanz Land & Loan Company, Cobb & Avery, as a firm and as individuals, E. T. Loughborough, assignee, and his sureties and others, numbered 19,998, and styled Herman Kruegel v. Murphy & Bolanz, et al., seeking to recover on his claims aggregating $10,992, and to declare the sale of the Murphy & Bolanz business property to Cobb & Avery fraudulent and void as to Murphy & Bolanz's creditors and subject same to satisfy plaintiff's former judgment of $1,318.60. That, after trying said suit for five days, the district judge, Thomas F. Nash, actuated by partiality and favoritism, arbitrarily instructed a verdict for defendants, and judgment was accordingly so rendered. Notice of appeal was given, but, on account of sickness of the judge, no statement of facts was approved by him, and the...