Loveless v. Southern Grocer Co.

• Decision Date: 10 March 1908
• Docket Number: 1,701.
• Parties: LOVELESS v. SOUTHERN GROCER CO., Limited, et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

159 F. 415

LOVELESS v. SOUTHERN GROCER CO., Limited, et al.

No. 1,701.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

March 10, 1908

Frank P. Stubbs, Jr., and Geo. Wesley Smith, for petitioner.

John M Mulholland, for respondents.

Before McCORMICK and SHELBY, Circuit Judges, and BURNS, District judge.

SHELBY Circuit Judge.

On March 27, 1905, John F. Loveless, the petitioner herein, was appointed receiver of the Hemler-Thomason Company, Limited, a commercial corporation, by the district court of the parish of Richland, La. He qualified as such receiver and gave bond with surety, in the sum of $5,000. He took possession of the assets of the corporation, sold the merchandise under the order of the state court, and made collections of claims, and from these and other sources he received about $2,100. He paid out as receiver about $700 in court costs, keeper's fees, taxes, attorney's fees, and receiver's commissions. On July 23, 1905, after the receiver had made these payments, creditors of the Hemler-Thomason Company Limited, filed in the bankruptcy court below an involuntary petition in bankruptcy against the corporation, and it was duly adjudicated a bankrupt on August 26, 1905. On October 10, 1905, Loveless, who was receiver in the state court, was elected trustee in the bankruptcy court, and duly qualified as such trustee on October 17, 1905. For the purpose of closing his receivership in the state court, Loveless filed his accounts in that court on January 25, 1906. Objections to the account were made by the Southern Grocer Company Limited, and other creditors of the bankrupt. The opposition was tried, and was under submission, when on April 26, 1907, the Southern Grocer Company, Limited, and other creditors of the bankrupt, filed a petition in the court below praying for a rule on Loveless, as trustee, requiring him to pay into the registry of the bankruptcy court all moneys received by him as receiver in the state court. The prayer of this petition was granted by the referee in bankruptcy, and, on petition for review, was affirmed by the bankruptcy court. The record shows, without dispute, that the trustee, as such, had paid out in costs and dividends about $1,300 under orders of the bankruptcy court. The summary order requiring him to make payment into the bankruptcy court raises a controversy as to $660.34. This sum, or most of it, petitioner claims that he paid out legally and properly while he was acting as...