Quinn v. Patton
| Decision Date | 31 December 1841 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | JAMES QUINN v. JAMES W. PATTON AND OTHERS. |
A Sheriff who has seized property under an execution, which is claimed by other persons besides the defendant in the execution, cannot sustain a bill of interpleader against such persons and the plaintiff in the execution requiring them to interplead, so that their respective rights may be ascertained.
When the same solicitor, who files the plaintiff's bill, files also the answers of some of the defendants, costs will not be allowed to these defendants, though the bill be dismissed with costs as to the others.
The case of Quinn v Green, 1. Ired. Eq. 229, cited and approved.
This was a case removed to the Supreme Court by consent of parties at Lincoln Court of Equity, Fall Term 1841, the cause having been previously set for hearing upon the bill, answers, depositions and exhibits at that Court. The pleadings and facts are set forth in the opinion delivered in this Court.
No counsel appeared for the plaintiff.
Waddell and Iredell for the defendants cited the case of Quinn v Green , 1. Ired. Eq. 229.
This is a bill of interpleader filed October 20th, 1839, against five persons; and, on the pleadings, the case is this: The defendant, Patton, took a judgment for $2871 against one True, by confession in Buncombe County Court, which sat on the 1st Monday of July, 1839, and on the 24th of August following, he delivered a fieri facias, issued thereon, to the plaintiff, then the Sheriff of Lincoln, who proceeded to seize under it seven horses and other articles as the property of True, but then in the possession of the defendant Clarke; which articles the Sheriff sold, and by the sale raised the sum of $677 86 1/2. Before the execution came to the hands of the Sheriff, True had absconded from Lincoln, and divers of his creditors, respectively took out original attachments, dated after the 1st Monday of July, and returnable before a Justice of the Peace, and put them into the hands of Clarke, who is another of the defendants to this suit, and was then a Constable in Lincoln, and levied them on the horses and other articles, which the Sheriff subsequently took out of his possession under Patton's execution. Three other creditors of True, namely, the defendants Slade, Cody, and Unger, also sued out original attachments against his estate on different days in August, returnable to the County Court of Lincoln; and the bill states, that, after the plaintiff had made his sale, he was informed that these last attachments had been served by one of his deputies on the same property, then in the hands of Clarke, and subject to the attachments that had been served by Clarke.
The bill then states that the plaintiff holds the said sum of $677,86 1/2, ready to be paid to whomsoever he ought, but that he is likely to be injured in respect thereof, inasmuch as Patton claims the whole thereof under his execution, and the other defendants respectively claim parts thereof under their several attachments, and all threaten to prosecute actions against the plaintiff accordingly, and he is unable to determine to which of those parties he ought in law to account, for the following reasons: The said attaching creditors...
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