National Park Bank v. Goddard — 41 N.Y. St. Rep. 439

Majority

p. 439

The National Park Bank, Resp’t, v. Warren N. Goddard et al., App’lts.

(Supreme Court, General Term, First Department,

Filed November 13, 1891.)

Headnote

1. Equity—Jurisdiction.

Equity will intervene where there is no adequate relief at law, and such interference is not limited to cases of accident, mistake, fraud or discovery.

2. Injunction—Determination of claims in one action.

After attachments in favor of the plaintiff had been levied on property of its debtor, actions of replevin were commenced by the defendants to recover property claimed to have been purchased by said debtor fraudulently, and said property was taken thereunder, some of the defendants claiming one portion of a garment, others other portions, the goods sold having been manufactured into garments. Feld, that an action to restrain such replevin suits and to determine the claims of the parties to'the property was maintainable, and that a receiver was properly appointed to take ca^e of the -property.

Appeal from orders granting injunction and appointing receiver herein.

E. F. Dwight, for app’lts, Oelberman et al.; Gilbert Putzel, for Raritan Woolen Mills et al, app’lts; Benno Loewy, for app’lts, Haas et al.; Butler, Stillman & Hubbard, for app’lts, Juillard et al.; Otto Horwitz, for resp’t.

Levy Bros. & Co. were a limited partnership engaged in the manufacture and sale of clothing in New

p. 440

York and being indebted to the plaintiff in a large sum of money, their property was attached at the suit of the plaintiff by the sheriff, who took into his possession their stock of goods and some other property. At that time the defendants herein, other than the Levys and the coroner, claimed to be creditors of the insolvent firm for goods sold and delivered, but their claims had not matured.

As soon as the sheriff had levied upon and taken possession of the firm’s property these creditors, claiming that the goods sold by them to the Levys were obtained from them by fraud, assumed to rescind the sales and commenced actions in replevin to recover the goods they had respectively sold. The coroner thereupon took the goods out of the sheriff's possession. Some forty or fifty different actions of this nature were thus commenced.

The goods sought to he replevined were cloth, linings, trimmings, and other materials which had been sold by the plaintiffs in the replevin suits to the Levys and which had to a great extent been made up by the Levys into clothing; the cloth bought from one merchant being combined with the linings bought from another and the trimmings furnished by another to form the garment as it existed at the time of the levy on the attachment by the sheriff. Each plaintiff in the replevin suits claimed certain goods in whatever shape he could find them, whether in the piece or made up into garments. Entire garments were claimed by the merchant who sold the buttons or lining, or who sold the cloth or furnished other parts of the material, and at the time that this action was commenced were in the act of seizing upon and taking away property, some of which had formerly belonged to them and some of which they had never owned; the claim of the plaintiffs in the replevin suits being that these goods having been obtained by fraud they bad the right to follow them in any form that it might assume through the interference of others. The respondent thereupon commenced this action for the protection of its lien under its attachment, and to procure in one suit a determination of all the adverse and conflicting claims upon the attached property, and for an injunction and a receiver, averring that it was necessary for the protection of its lien that the attached property be held or sold for the benefit of all the lienors or claimants thereto. An order to show cause why a receiver should not be appointed having been made, an order was made temporarily enjoining the defendants from pursuing their actions in replevin, and the court appointed a receiver, two orders having been entered in respect thereto, and from these orders these appeals are taken.

It is urged upon the part of the appellants that the complaint does not disclose equity sufficient to authorize the relief granted by the order, and that multiplicity of suits is not alone a sufficient ground for the interposition of a court of equity, but^ that there must be some additional equity, of which the plaintiff, is unable to avail itself at law or which is a distinct ground of equitable cognisance, such an accident, mistake, fraud or discovery; and that in any event it must be shown that there is a common

p. 441

right at stake among the defendants or a common property involved in dispute.

Undoubtedly a part of this proposition is well founded, but the limitation of the interference of equity to cases of accident, mistake, fraud or discovery would seem to deprive that branch of jurisprudence of the most important part of its jurisdiction. And in the consideration of the questions presented upon this appeal it may be proper to call attention to the manner in which equitable interference has been called into existence by the necessities of the case; the cardinal principle being that the party had no adequate remedy at law, which is the foundation of all equitable interference.

In order to obviate many defects in proceedings at law, the remedy by interpleader was introduced into equity; but as it left many cases of hardship unprovided for, bills quia timet obtained which were essentially in their nature writs of prevention, and, therefore, instituted before the wrong has been or is actually being suffered. But as these did not afford relief, many cases where injury was being suffered for which the law afforded no adequate protection, as where courts of equity interposed to prevent waste or destruction or deterioration of property pendente lite or to prevent irreparable mischief, bills, of peace and writs of injunction were resorted to. The grounds upon which the jurisdiction of courts of equity, in proceedings of this character was founded arose from their ability to give a more complete and perfect remedy than is obtainable by law, in order to prevent irreparable mischief or to suppress oppressive and vexatious litigations. In fact, equity has always intervened where the law cannot afford adequate relief.

The question arises in the case at bar whether the plaintiff has brought itself within the jurisdiction of a court of equity by the facts developed upon the hearing of these motions.

It is urged that the plaintiff has no standing in court as against these parties seizing these goods under their replevin writs. But it was held in the case of the First Nat. Bank of Oswego v. Dunn, 97 N. Y., 159 , that an execution creditor, if he meets with an obstruction to his levy, may, because of his general lien, proceed in equity, making all the rival claimants parties, and prevent, if need be, the transfer of the property by the plaintiff in replevin, avoid a multiplicity of suits and so determine in one action the whole controversy. In the case at bar the plaintiff had an actual lien upon the property, having levied thereon and being in possession of it Its levy is obstructed by the various claimants of this property as represented in the replevin suits, and in some cases different claimants claiming different portions of the same piece of property.

If these defendants are allowed to go on, a large portion of this property upon which the plaintiff has obtained its lien will be absolutely destroyed, and if it should finally succeed in the replevin actions it will have but a barren victory. Therefore it has brought this action in equity making all the rival claimants parties

p. 442

and claiming the right to prevent the transfer of the property by the plaintiffs in replevin, and also claiming to avoid a multiplicity of suits, precisely within the principle of the case cited.

In this action the rights of all the parties can be protected and the property or its proceeds preserved for the party who shall finally be decided to be entitled to the same. Without elaborating the propositions heretofore referred to, it seems from the facts disclosed by these papers that if there was ever a case in which a court of equity should intervene to prevent irreparable injury, it was under circumstances such as are disclosed in the case at bar.

The point made that the parties in the replevin suits are by this means deprived of their right to a trial by jury cannot have any force, because if they are entitled as matter of right to a trial by jury issues may be framed by which they may be able to have the benefit of that right. But we do not intend to intimate any opinion upon that subject because it has become familiar law that even a replevin suit may become an action in equity by an order of interpleader.

Upon the whole case, therefore, we are of opinion that it was a wise exercise of the discretion of the court to prevent the dissipation of this property and to take possession of the same itself until the determination of these rival claims and the ascertainment of the rights and interests of each.

It is claimed by some of the appellants that their actions were brought for the recovery of goods which remained in the original packages, or in the original piece, and which were not either manufactured or in process of manufacture at the time of the issuance of the writs. There may be a few instances of that kind, but there is no sufficient reason why one or two suits should be allowed to progress if all the others are to be enjoined.

The orders appealed from should therefore be affirmed, with $10 costs and disbursements.

Barrett, J., concurs.