Thompson v. Hill

• Decision Date: 17 December 1928
• Docket Number: 27411
• Citation: 119 So. 320,152 Miss. 390
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: THOMPSON v. HILL. [*]

119 So. 320

152 Miss. 390

THOMPSON v. HILL. ^[*]

No. 27411

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 17, 1928

Division B

Suggestion of Error Overruled Feb. 4, 1929.

APPEAL from chancery court of Sunflower county., HON. J. L WILLIAMS, Chancellor.

Suit by A. J. Hill against C. H. Thompson to enjoin the execution of a judgment. From a decree for complainant, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Affirmed.

Franklin, Easterling & Fox, for appellant.

Had the chancery court of Sunflower county jurisdiction to issue the injunction against a judgment rendered by the circuit court of the Second district of Tallahatchie county? This is manifestly a collateral attack upon said judgment. The bill of complaint proceeds upon the theory that the judgment of the circuit court of the Second district of Tallahatchie county is null and void.

However the circuit court of Tallahatchie county had jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the parties and the said judgment having not been appealed from is valid and binding, and conclusive upon the parties and privies thereto. Being a valid judgment it cannot be set aside by any other court of equal dignity, its judgment can only be reversed upon proper appeal or pleadings therefor by the supreme court of this state.

Appellee showed in his bill that he was adjudged a bankrupt on January 12, 1925, and attempts to plead his discharge in bankruptcy as a release to all debts which existed on the day of adjudication.

At the time the case was tried by the circuit court of the Second district of Tallahatchie county, Mississippi, upon which the judgment was rendered attacked in this cause, it was found as a fact by the court, because of the negligence by the said A. J. Hill, or his counsel, to produce the proper proof evidencing the same, that he had not been adjudged to be a bankrupt by any court of competent jurisdiction. The issue having been raised and decided by a court of competent jurisdiction, having jurisdiction of the subject-matter and the parties, is binding upon the parties and cannot be set aside on any collateral attack. The remedy, if any, was before the court that rendered the judgment or by direct appeal to the supreme court.

Appellee is seeking in this suit to overthrow what was adjudicated by the circuit court of the Second district of Tallahatchie county, even though erroneous and contrary to the fact, the said Hill having failed to offer proper evidence of such fact, said judgment is conclusive and binding upon the said Hill and he is estopped to relitigate in the chancery court of Sunflower county the same point that was decided adversely to him in that court; the judgment of that court is conclusive and prohibits Hill from contradicting and denying in this proceeding the facts and law found in that case.

If the judgment of the circuit court of Tallahatchie county is a valid judgment its execution cannot be enjoined by the chancery court of Sunflower county. Appellee had full, complete and adequate remedy at law in the other proceeding. The chancery court of Sunflower county had no jurisdiction to enjoin the process of another court under a valid judgment of said court. Equity may enjoin the execution of a void judgment at law but cannot enjoin the execution of a valid judgment. See Bruister v. Tansil, 134 Miss. 705, 99 So. 259; Bates v. Strickland, 139 Miss. 636, 103 So. 432. This court will observe that this is not a case where judgment was rendered against a party who afterwards was adjudged a bankrupt, but in this case the appellee here, by his pleadings in the circuit court of the Second district of Tallahatchie county, Mississippi, called into question whether or not a bankruptcy proceedings was pending in the court of the United States for the Delta Division of the Northern district of Mississippi, in which appellee had been adjudicated a bankrupt prior in time to the rendition of said judgment. The parties took issue upon this fact, to-wit: whether or not there was a proceeding pending in said United States court wherein appellee was duly adjudged to be a bankrupt; evidence was taken upon this point which was raised by the pleadings and the court in that case found and adjudged:". . . that the said A. J. Hill has not heretofore been adjudged to be a bankrupt by any court of competent jurisdiction."

It may be argued by counsel for appellant that it was not necessary for Hill to aver and prove an adjudication in bankruptcy prior to March 2, 1925, and that the discharge in bankruptcy was sufficient. In order to show a discharge in bankruptcy, the said Hill is called upon to prove a proceeding which had been begun in the said court on January 12, 1925, which the circuit court found had not been begun and was not pending. In other words, appellee's whole case is based upon the averment of facts which were properly pleadable in the other case and which he did plead but failed to prove. It is elementary law that judgments are binding upon the parties thereto and their privies; and, that once a court of competent jurisdiction has passed upon and settled an issue, right or wrong, black or white, straight or crooked, that issue is thereafter binding upon the parties of record to said judgment, so long as said judgment remains in full force and effect. See Von Zondt v. Braxton, 149 Miss. 461, 115 So. 557.

Can the appellee maintain his suit for injunction in the chancery court to enjoin the execution upon a judgment of a circuit court when he had a plain, adequate, full and complete remedy at law? It is a general rule laid down in the textbooks and encyclopedias that the extraordinary writ of injunction will not be granted where there existed at the time, a plain, adequate, complete remedy at law. 23 Cyc. 1236; 22 Cyc. 796; Edward Hines, Trustee, v. Knox, 144 Miss. 560, 108 So. 907; Grenada Bank v. Waring, 135 Miss. 226, 99 So. 681; Gum Carbo Co. v. New Orleans German Gazette, 90 Miss. 117, 43 So. 82; 7 C. J. 414.

Kohn Weil & Co. v. Weinburg, 110 Miss. 275, 70 So. 353, was a suit somewhat similar to the one here. Appellants in that suit filed suit in a justice court and obtained judgment against A. Weinberg, and the said Weinberg appealed to the circuit court. Pending the appeal, Weinberg was adjudged a bankrupt and when the case was called for trial his application for a discharge was pending before a referee. He filed a petition in the circuit court asking that all proceedings in his appeal case be stayed until his petition for discharge was acted upon. In response to this application the appellant produced an order granted by the district judge sitting in bankruptcy, authorizing appellant as plaintiff to proceed to judgment in that suit. The circuit court thereupon overruled the application to stay the proceedings and the case proceeded to trial, and judgment was rendered in favor of appellant and against Weinberg. Execution was then issued on said judgment against the sureties and was in the hands of the sheriff when Weinberg filed suit in the chancery court reciting the above facts, and averring that since the rendition of the judgment by the circuit court, Weinberg had been discharged from bankruptcy and praying for a cancellation of the judgment as to all the judgment debtors and for an injunction against the execution of the same. Appellant answered the same, denying the allegation that the judgment was void, and filed a motion to dissolve the injunction and the cause was heard upon the bill, answer and agreed statement of facts, disclosing that the discharge was granted after the trial of the appeal in the circuit court. The difference between that case and the case at bar is, that in the instant case the circuit court adjudicated adversely to appellee's contention that Hill was not in bankruptcy and no proceedings in which Hill was or had been a bankrupt were pending in the Federal court. Inasmuch as in the Kohn-Weil case the decree sustaining the injunction, which was sued out before the discharge in bankruptcy, was reversed, and the bill dismissed, it is to be assumed that the reason was that the appellee in that case had their remedy at law, since the court says that there had been no change in the status of the parties between rendition of the judgment and the filing of the bill of complaint, and that if there was any error in the circuit court proceedings any party aggrieved had the right to appeal. See, also, Alabama, etc., Ry. Co. v. Crawley, 118 Miss. 272, 79 So. 94. The above case clearly points out that a party, against whom judgment has been rendered prior to his discharge upon any claim provable in bankruptcy, an adequate and complete remedy at law and therefore had no right to maintain this injunction.

Is the obligation of Hill, as principal, on the replevin bond for the restoration of the cotton seized, such a claim as was properly provable in bankruptcy, and if so, was it released by his discharge in bankruptcy? In other words was it a direct or contingent liability within the meaning of the bankruptcy acts? It will not be gainsaid or disputed that Thompson had a landlord's lien, upon the fifteen bales of cotton seized by the sheriff under said attachment writ against Hill. The adjudication of the bankruptcy of Hill did not release Thompson's lien. The bankruptcy act does not interfere with any existing lien over four months old; in other words, Thompson was entitled to have this cotton levied on by the sheriff, sold to satisfy his rent.

The liability for the rent, that is, the personal liability of Hill, is one thing and the liability of the cotton therefor is another thing; regardless of Hill's bankruptcy, the cotton could still have been sold to satisfy Thompson's rent demand. We go further, if this cotton had been found after the adjudication in...