Shannon v. Wright

• Decision Date: 06 July 1883
• Citation: 60 Md. 520
• Parties: WILLIAM SHANNON, David R. Shannon and John T. Shannon v. ENOS K. WRIGHT.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

60 Md. 520

WILLIAM SHANNON, David R. Shannon and John T. Shannon v. ENOS K. WRIGHT.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

July 6, 1883

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Baltimore City.

The appellee, together with the appellants, were co-partners in the business of manufacturing and dealing in metals, in the City of Baltimore, under the firm name of Shannon, Wright & Co. A bill was filed by the appellee against the appellants asking for an injunction and the appointment of a receiver. The case is further stated in the opinion of the court.

The cause was argued before Miller, Stone, Alvey, Irving, and Ritchie, JJ.

William M. Busey and Samuel Snowden, for the appellants.

Sebastian Brown, for the appellee.

Ritchie J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City appointing a receiver and granting an injunction; with leave to the defendants after filing answers to the bill and upon giving five days' notice to the complainant, to move for the rescinding of the order and the dissolution of the injunction.

The answers have been filed; but under the construction repeatedly given to the Code of Pub. Gen. Laws, Art. 5, sec 21, this court is confined on the appeal provided by the statute to the case made by the bill, and does not examine the answer. The averments of the bill, whatever may be the real state of the facts, must be taken as true. Haight v. Burr, 19 Md. 130.

Our duty, therefore, is simply to determine whether the case stated by the complainant was one which justified the passage of the order appealed from.

Without pausing to dwell upon those averments of the complainant which impute fraudulent misrepresentations to the defendants as to the value of the firm's assets and its business, by which he was induced to enter into a partnership with them, which has disproportionately engulfed his means and exposed him to great loss, we find in the specific allegations of clause ten of the bill ample ground for the equitable interposition he has invoked. That clause is as follows:

"And now your orator charges, that debts are due by, and suits are pending against, the firm, and that the defendants having the money of the firm in their possession, refuse to apply it toward the payment of said debts; that they refuse to give any money to your orator; that they refuse to permit your orator's counsel to examine the books of the firm; that they

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