Kunkel v. Red River Nat. Bank in Clarksville

• Decision Date: 24 April 1947
• Docket Number: No. 6276.,6276.
• Parties: KUNKEL v. RED RIVER NAT. BANK IN CLARKSVILLE.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 962

202 S.W.2d 962

KUNKEL v. RED RIVER NAT. BANK IN CLARKSVILLE.

No. 6276.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Texarkana.

April 24, 1947.

Rehearing Denied May 1, 1947.

Appeal from District Court, Red River County; N. L. Dalby, Judge.

Suit by J. A. Kunkel against Red River National Bank in Clarksville to recover a sum of money paid to defendant allegedly under duress. From a take nothing judgment, plaintiff appeals.

Judgment affirmed.

A. L. Burford and Shelburne H. Glover, both of Texarkana, for appellant.

O. B. Fisher, of Paris, for appellee.

WILLIAMS, Justice.

J. A. Kunkel, a highly respectable and prosperous citizen, an honest victim of the economic collapse following World War I, upon his voluntary petition was adjudged a bankrupt in 1929, receiving his discharge in bankruptcy in March, 1930. Various claims aggregating around $140,000 were filed and approved in the bankrupt estate, which included the claim for $38,809 of the Red River National Bank, Clarksville, Texas, herein referred to as the bank. The assets paid an insignificant dividend.

Through the services of attorneys employed by Mr. Kunkel in 1940, ten years after his discharge in bankruptcy, they in the spring of 1941 secured the passage of a special act of the Texas Legislature, whereby the Commissioners' Court of Red River County was authorized to reimburse Mr. Kunkel by the issuance of warrants for funds he claimed to have advanced and used in the construction of a public road in the county during the years 1919 to 1922. Shortly after the passage of the special act, the bank on May 3, 1941, filed its petition in the United States District Court wherein it alleged (as a creditor of the bankrupt estate of J. A. Kunkel), that the debt, about to be paid by the issuance of the warrants, was a part of the bankrupt estate not administered in the bankruptcy proceedings, and prayed that the bankruptcy matter be reopened so that a full and complete administration of the estate be had. A temporary restraining order was issued the same day whereby the commissioners' court was enjoined from issuing the warrants and Mr. Kunkel from assigning or hypothecating his debt against the county to any person whomsoever.

Pursuant to a written agreement entered into May 10, 1941, and a joint motion filed the same day, the restraining order was set aside and dissolved. In compliance with further provisions of the agreement, the warrants later issued were sold and the proceeds deposited in the Liberty National Bank, as trustee, pending the final determination of the rights of the parties to receive the proceeds. June 30, 1941, pursuant to a written agreement executed by the litigants, the trustee bank paid to the Red River National Bank $3,130 out of the proceeds from the sale of the warrants and Mr. Kunkel and his attorneys the remainder. An assignment executed by the bank on the same date which recites a consideration of $3,130 paid by Mr. Kunkel assigned to the latter all rights, title and interest of the bank in its claim theretofore filed in the bankrupt court, together with all the rights and claims of the bank in and to any assets in said bankrupt estate. The bank's motion filed on the same day to dismiss its motion to have the bankruptcy proceedings reopened was refused by the United States District Court. Other creditors intervened and through the action of a referee and trustee litigated the effort to reopen the bankruptcy estate and to have the debt being collected by Mr. Kunkel administered and distributed as a part of the bankrupt estate. It appears that later, in April, 1946, after an appeal, the litigation so pushed by intervenors terminated by a decree which...