Sewanee Fuel & Iron Co. v. Leonard

• Decision Date: 03 April 1918
• Citation: 202 S.W. 928,139 Tenn. 648
• Parties: SEWANEE FUEL & IRON CO. v. LEONARD ET AL.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

202 S.W. 928

139 Tenn. 648

SEWANEE FUEL & IRON CO. v. LEONARD ET AL.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April 3, 1918

Certiorari to Court of Civil Appeals.

Interpleader by the Sewanee Fuel & Iron Company against Fred C. Leonard and others and W. C. Stone and others. From a decree of the Court of Civil Appeals reversing a decree of the chancellor dismissing the bill, the last-named defendants bring certiorari. Reversed, and proceedings dismissed.

Fults & Schwoon, of Tracy City, and Spears & Spears, of Chattanooga for defendants.

GREEN J.

This was a bill of interpleader filed by the complainant against Fred C. Leonard and others on the one hand, and W. C. Stone and associates on the other hand. Complainant alleged that it had mined certain coal on a 30-acre tract of land in Grundy county and was indebted either to the one set of parties or to the other for the value of this coal; that both parties had sued it, and it filed this bill to compel the claimants to interplead and have their rights determined and to have a decree directing to whom the complainant should respond for the value of the coal taken.

No order was entered in the chancery court sustaining the bill as one of interpleader. On the hearing the chancellor dismissed the bill, but decreed that Stone and associates were the owners of the tract of land involved. The Court of Civil Appeals held that the chancellor was in error in passing a decree in favor of one set of defendants after dismissing the bill of interpleader. That court reversed the chancellor and remanded the case, with directions that the bill be sustained as a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader and directed further proceedings toward accomplishing the purposes for which the bill was filed.

A petition for certiorari has been filed by Stone and associates, and this petition is herewith granted. We are of opinion that complainant's bill cannot be sustained at all.

It appears from the bill and otherwise in the record that the Sewanee Coal, Coke & Land Company was formerly in possession of the tract of land from which the coal was taken. About the year 1908 this company conveyed a large boundary of land embracing the tract in question, to the complainant Sewanee Fuel & Iron Company.

Prior to this conveyance, Stone and associates had brought a suit in ejectment against the Sewanee Coal, Coke & Land Company to recover land including that from which the coal was taken. This suit was pending at the time of the deed from the Sewanee Coal, Coke & Land Company to the complainant, and complainant admits actual knowledge thereof.

After the conveyance to the complainant of said land, the coal in question was mined. The complainant avers in its bill that it did not conceive that the ejectment suit against its predecessor in title involved the particular land from which it took this coal, but it is admitted in the bill that it did take coal from land later adjudged by this court, in the suit mentioned, to be the property of Stone and others.

Complainant's bill avers that Leonard and associates are now claiming the ownership of said land under a title which is alleged by Leonard to be superior to the title of Stone and associates. As stated before, it was averred in the bill that both sets of claimants had sued the complainant for the value of the coal mined from the 30-acre tract.

Waiving the old rule of privity, which it was said must exist between defendants, to justify the filing of a bill of interpleader against them, but which is now said to be somewhat relaxed we are of opinion that this bill cannot be maintained because the complainant, as disclosed by its bill, is a wrongdoer.

It is well settled that a bill of interpleader cannot be sustained where it appears that as to either of the defendants the plaintiff is a wrongdoer. 11 Enc. of Pl. & Pr. 457; 23 Cyc, 9; 15 R. C. L. p. 227; and notes, 35 Am. Dec. 72; 91 Am. St. Rep. 605. We find no case in which a complainant admittedly a trespasser as to both defendants has sought to maintain a bill of interpleader.

A plaintiff liable for conversion cannot interplead a party making the charge with others claiming adversely to him under whom the plaintiff acted. 11 Enc. Pl. & Pr. 458, citing American Tel., etc., Co. v. Day, 52 N.Y. Super. Ct. 128.

It has frequently been adjudged that a sheriff who has committed a trespass by levying upon the property of the wrong person cannot maintain a bill of interpleader against the owner and the execution creditor. Morristown First Natl. Bank v Bininger, 26 N. J. Eq. 345; Shaw v....