Seeley v. Cornell

• Citation: 6 F. Supp. 241
• Decision Date: 14 March 1934
• Docket Number: No. 190.,190.
• Parties: SEELEY et al. v. CORNELL et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

6 F. Supp. 241

SEELEY et al. v. CORNELL et al.

No. 190.

District Court, N. D. Texas, San Angelo Division.

March 14, 1934.

T. R. Boone, E. T. Duff, and Kearby Peery, all of Wichita Falls, Tex., for complainants.

Harris & Martin, of Wichita Falls, Tex., for defendant heirs.

Collins, Jackson & Snodgrass, of San Angelo, Tex., for defendant Cornell and associates.

ATWELL, District Judge.

On December 11, 1933, Mrs. Viola Seeley, a feme sole, and Mrs. Ida May Ramsey, joined by her husband, G. W. Ramsey, filed their bill against James Cornell, L. W. Elliott, W. H. Colquitt, Bryan Montague, C. R. Sutton, Will Monroe, Jerry Monroe, Zack Monroe, Mrs. B. E. Taylor, a feme sole, Mrs. Josie Pahl, and husband, Ernest A. Pahl, J. H. Mathews, Willie Mae Mathews, Lennie Loreno Mathews Aiken, and husband, Edwin Aiken, all of whom reside in some of the counties of Texas; also against Henry Monroe, of New Mexico, W. R. Whitesides, of Oklahoma, John D. La Mont, of Minnesota, M. C. Robinson, Sophie Whitesides, and Roger V. Whitesides, of Minnesota, Douglas Oil Company, Minnesota, Hargrove Hudson, Oklahoma, and the American Surety Company of New York.

The complainants, together with defendants Jerry Monroe, Willie Monroe, Henry Monroe, Zack Monroe, Mrs. B. E. Taylor, Mrs. Joseph Pahl, Lennie Loreno Mathews Aiken, Minnie Pearl Mathews, and Willie Mae Mathews are the heirs of Mrs. M. A. Monroe Smith, deceased. The complainants are residents of the states of California and Arizona.

They allege that they, together with the other mentioned heirs of Mrs. Monroe Smith, are entitled to a large estate in lands and moneys in Pecos county, Tex. That such lands and moneys were the community property of Mrs. Monroe Smith, née Mrs. Monroe, their mother, and her deceased husband. That in the year 1927, upon the discovery of oil in that section, the then widowed mother began to lease and make contracts with certain oil companies concerning the exploitation of the lands that she and her husband had accumulated during their married life. That thereupon one of her children, mentioned above as one of the heirs, filed a petition in the state court, over which the defendant C. R. Sutton presided as judge, for the appointment of a receiver for her properties, alleging the interest of himself and her other children therein, and stating that the mother was not capable of managing the estate. Thereupon the court appointed defendant Colquitt as receiver. Bond was given by the receiver in the sum of $100,000, with the defendant American Surety Company as surety.

That during the administration of that estate in that court the heirs of Mrs. Monroe Smith employed the defendant James Cornell to represent them and agreed to pay him 20 per cent. of what he recovered for them. That some eighty suits were filed by the receiver for the cancellation of leases and contracts that had been made for and on such lands. That the defendant Cornell and the receiver, Colquitt, and Judge Sutton conspired in the entry of certain orders and decrees in that and other cases concerning this estate for the collection of large sums of money from oil companies and parties interested in such lands and appropriated the same. That these transactions were participated in by some of the other defendants, outside of the heirs. That many muniments of title were passed from such defendants and through said court and other courts, with the fraudulent design and intention of the said defendants to take from the heirs that which was really theirs, and that finally a large and valuable part of the estate passed through the defendant Cornell to the Douglas Oil Company. That later on, in the year 1930, the defendant Cornell secured from the heirs, by fraudulent representation, a transfer of all of their interests in and to all of the property that had theretofore belonged to the community estate of the father and mother, paying therefor to each of such nine heirs the sum of $20,000.

That the estate was worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars. That such value and such fraud was concealed from the heirs, they trusting their attorney, Cornell, implicitly.

The plaintiffs ask for a cancellation of these various muniments of title, judgments of court, and of the transfer from them to Cornell; for an accounting of all the moneys received by him as attorney in their name and behalf; for a judgment against the receiver and against his official bond; for a decree for money due them by Cornell, Elliott, Colquitt, Montague, and Sutton; and for a recovery of the lands and other properties as well as the proceeds received from said property.

The bill is quite lengthy, and I have only given a cursory résumé of it.

All of the parties have made an appearance. The defendant heirs have filed lengthy answers following substantially the allegations made by the plaintiff heirs. In fact, the answers are almost identical with the plaintiff's bill and seek the same relief.

After these appearances the defendant Cornell, joined by his wife, filed six suits in the state district court of Pecos county, the same court in which it is alleged all of these untoward occurrences happened. Those suits are against the heirs who are parties to this suit. In those suits the defendant Cornell describes many pieces of property in Pecos county which were originally a part of Mrs. Monroe's estate, and also several thousand dollars of choses in action, and alleges his employment as attorney for these particular heirs, parties to this suit, and defendants in his recent suits, the acquisition by him of the lands and interests mentioned, the placing of certain properties by him in such capacity in the Douglas Oil Company, and that all accounting and settlement between himself and his clients, the said heirs, was fair and honorable and honest, and that, in spite of such settlements and conveyances and ratifications, the heirs are asserting claims and interests to said lands and properties and are contending that he obtained them by fraud and misrepresentation, by reason of which claims they are casting a cloud upon his title thereto, and he sues to have such cloud removed, and for a quieting of his right and titles.

When these suits were filed by defendant Cornell the plaintiff and defendant heirs in this suit filed an application for an injunction. They asked that this court enjoin him from going further in those suits, alleging that jurisdiction attached here first and that what he is seeking to do there is directly involved in the controversy here, and that those suits would in truth be an interference with the jurisdiction of this court.

It is too clear for argument that even the rough statement that has been made of this controversy exhibits the identity of the issues involved in the new state court suits and in the suit here. It is quite true that parties may litigate in the courts of the different sovereignties at the same time provided there is no impingement of jurisdiction or...