Pickens v. Dent

• Decision Date: 07 February 1901
• Docket Number: 382.
• Citation: 106 F. 653
• Parties: PICKENS v. DENT et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

106 F. 653

PICKENS v. DENT et al.

No. 382.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

February 7, 1901

John W Davis (John Bassell and Davis & Davis, on the brief), for appellant.

J. Hop Woods (Edwin Marshall, on the brief), for appellees.

Before GOFF and SIMONTON, Circuit Judges, and PURNELL, District Judge.

GOFF Circuit Judge.

On the 27th day of October, 1899, the appellant filed his petition in bankruptcy in the district court of the United States for the district of West Virginia, and in due time he was adjudged a bankrupt by that court. Prior to his being so adjudged a bankrupt, in the year 1889, a suit in equity had been instituted against him and others by Susan C. Dent in the circuit court of Barbour county, W. Va., the object of which was to set aside as fraudulent a certain deed made by him to trustees, bearing date January 14, 1889, and assailing as fraudulent certain debts therein secured. The creditors of appellant were made parties to said suit, and an amended bill was filed, in which it was alleged that the complainant Dent, had recovered a judgment at law against appellant for the sum of $10,000, with interest and costs. The prayer of the bill was that the real estate mentioned therein as the property of appellant, being the same as was described and conveyed in the trust deed, might be sold, and the proceeds applied to the payment of said judgment, and in satisfaction of the liens existing on said land. The history of that case extending, as it does, through years of hard-fought and well-contested litigation in said circuit court, as well as in the supreme court of appeals of West Virginia, while of great interest, is still not essential to the proper understanding and decision of the appeal now to be decided by this court. It is sufficient to say that, at the time of the adjudication of the appellant as a bankrupt, it was still pending in and undisposed of by the circuit court of Barbour county.

After he was adjudged a bankrupt, the appellant, on the 2d day of November, 1899, filed an answer in said chancery cause, in which he set up the proceedings in bankruptcy, and asked that all further action in the state court might be suspended until the district court of the United States had disposed of the proceedings in bankruptcy; and he claimed in his answer that all his estate, rights, and interests of every kind and description had passed from the control of the circuit court of the United States for the district of West Virginia. On the 18th of November, 1899, a trustee in bankruptcy was duly appointed for appellant's estate, who in February, 1900, presented to such circuit court of Barbour county his petition, asking that said cause be proceeded with to final decree. Thereafter, on the wed of February, 1900, the said court rendered a decree in the chancery suit mentioned, by which, among other things, it was ordered that the deed of trust referred to in the bill be set aside as fraudulent, and that a special receiver and commissioner therein named should rent the land described in the bill until a certain date, and then sell the same; the proceeds thereof to be applied to the payment of the debts due by appellant. On the 20th of November, 1899, the complaint in the bill mentioned proved her debt (the judgment referred to) before the referee in bankruptcy as a debt against appellant's estate. The receiver and commissioner so appointed was proceeding to execute the decree of the circuit court of Barbour county when the appellant filed his bill in the district court of the United States for the district of West Virginia, in which the facts relating to said suit and to the proceedings in bankruptcy were fully set forth, and the claim was made that the state court, on the filing of the appellant's answer setting up his adjudication in bankruptcy, should have taken no further action in said cause, and that, therefore, the decree appointing the receiver and commissioner to rent and to sell the real estate mentioned was without authority of law and void. The prayer was that all further proceedings in the suit so pending in Barbour county be inhibited, and that the receiver and commissioner be enjoined from executing said decree, during the pendency of the proceedings in bankruptcy, and that the possession and control of the property so decreed to be rented and sold be turned over to the trustee in bankruptcy; the same to be administered by him as assets of the bankrupt. On March 31, 1900, the injunction so asked for was granted by the district judge, but was by him dissolved on the 26th day of July, 1900. At the same time appellant's bill was dismissed, and costs were awarded against him. From the order dissolving the injunction and dismissing the bill the appeal we are now considering was sued out.

The errors assigned are that 'it was error to hold that the district court had not jurisdiction of the matters alleged in the appellant's bill of complaint,'...