Case ID: tenn_26/html/0279-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Reese, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Rutland vs. Cummings.
    A Cleric and Master, who, as such, held notes, executed for the benefit of creditors, on which suits had been instituted in the Circuit Court, may file his bill in the court in which such notes were taken, for the purpose of attaching the property of the debtors, who were about removing such property.
    This is an attachment bill filed by Rutland, Clerk and Master of the Chancery Court, at Lebanon, in the said Chancery Court, for the purpose of securing property to meet a certain note then in suit in the Circuit Court of Wilson county, which had been executed to him as Clerk and Master, for the benefit of the creditors of McDaniel.
    The presiding Chancellor, Ridley, on motion, discharged the attachment, and dismissed the bill.
    The Clerk and Master appealed.
    
      Martin and 8. Brien, for complainant.
    
      R. L. Caruthers, for defendant.
   Reese, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

This case is identical, in form, with the case of Fisher & Co. vs. Cummings. In substance, it is altogether different.

The bill sets forth, that the complainant, as Clerk and Master of the Chancery Court of Wilson county, holds a note on said C. C. Cummings and one W. R. Phipps, for the sum of $561 25, dated 13th September, 1844, and due 12 months after date, which note was given to the complainant for the benefit of the creditors of J ames McDaniel, dec’d; that suit had been brought on said note in the Circuit Court of Wilson county, and judgment would be recovered at the next term of said court; that George D. Cummings and W. R. D. Phipps are both wholly insolvent; that on the hearing, said complainant will file said note if required. The bill states that said C. C. Cummings is owner of twenty or twenty-two negroes, and that complainant is informed and believes that he is about to remove his property beyond the limits of this State, or will otherwise so conceal or dispose of his property and effects that it will not be subject to the payment of said debts, and by such means the same will be lost; and he prays that subpoenas and copy issue, and an attachment issue, and the property be sold, &c. In this case too the attachment was discharged, and the property attached released, and the bill dismissed with costs. In this, we think, it to be very clear, that the Chancellor erred. What in substance and legal effect (form out of the question) was this proceeding? Nothing more than a petition upon oath, in the case of McDaniel’s creditors, by the officer of the court, in whose name, for the benefit of such creditors, a security was taken, showing that funds in the course of collection, in that cause, under the superintendance of the Chancery Court, were in imminent hazard of being lost; funds that the Chancery Court, without suit at law, might have ordered to be paid into court; funds that might have been collected by execution from the Chancery Court, without a suit at law, or pending a suit at law; funds likely to be lost by this circuitous, tedious, and unnecessary resort to a court at law.

The jurisdiction of the Chancery Court was primary: the attachment in such a case, and under such circumstances, altogether proper; existing on general grounds, without any aid from the act of 1843, ch. 29. Other means might have been taken, as we have shown, but this means was appropriate; and the note, by being in the power of the court, might at once, and without waiting for the action of the court of law, have been subjected to the satisfaction of the chancery claims in the case of McDaniel’s creditors.

Let the decree be reversed, and the case be remanded to the Chancery Court, and the defendant pay the cost of this court.