Perloff Bros., Inc. v. Cardonick

• Decision Date: 02 January 1962
• Citation: Perloff Bros., Inc. v. Cardonick, 176 A.2d 413, 406 Pa. 137 (Pa. 1962)
• Parties: PERLOFF BROTHERS, INC., a Pennsylvania Corporation and Garden Cash & Carry, Inc., a Pennsylvania Corporation, Appellants, v. Leon CARDONICK and the First Pennsylvania Banking and Trust Company.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

176 A.2d 413

406 Pa. 137

PERLOFF BROTHERS, INC., a Pennsylvania Corporation and Garden Cash & Carry, Inc., a Pennsylvania Corporation, Appellants, v. Leon CARDONICK and the First Pennsylvania Banking and Trust Company.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

January 2, 1962.

Cohen, Shapiro & Cohen, Norman C. Henss, Abraham L Shapiro, Philadelphia, for appellant.

Bernard Edelson, Philadelphia, for Leon Cardonick.

Saul Ewing, Remick & Saul, Philadelphia, for First Pennsylvania Banking & Trust Co.

Before BELL C. J., and MUSMANNO, JONES, COHEN, EAGEN and ALPERN, JJ.

COHEN Justice.

This is an appeal from the decree of the court below sitting in equity refusing to grant a preliminary injunction.Plaintiff-appellants, wholesale food distributors, seek to obtain an accounting from, and to impose a trust ex maleficio on, the individual defendant-appellee, Cardonick, manager of appellants' store, who allegedly embezzled company funds.The complaint also seeks to enjoin the First Pennsylvania Banking and Trust Company, defendant-appellee, from releasing or transferring funds held by it in Cardonick's name.

In determining this matter, we do not make a searching inquiry into the facts, and we particularly refrain from making an evaluation of the merits or the facts so not to influence the chancellor in the hearing for a final decree.

In Herman v. Dixon,393 Pa. 33, 36, 141 A.2d 576, 577(1958), we dissolved a preliminary injunction saying:

'Since a preliminary injunction is somewhat like a judgment and execution before trial, it will only issue where there is an urgent necessity to avoid injury which cannot be compensated for by damages and should never be awarded except when the rights of the plaintiff are clear.Also, it should in no event ever be issued unless greater injury will be done by refusing it than in granting it.'

Here, the enumerated standards have been met.

A cursory examination of the record suggests that Cardonick accumulated an increase in personal net worth far in excess of that which he could have saved from his admitted sources of income.This, combined with the fact that plaintiff-appellants' inventory reflected an unaccounted for loss during the same period and that Cardonick, who was in charge of the whole operation and the only one who handled the firm's cash, carried on some highly questionable financial activities, leads to the conclusion that plaintiff-appellants' rights are clear.

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