Court Opinion

ID: 9665276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:43:54.731546+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:14.360162
License: Public Domain

On Second Motion for Rehearing.
CRAMER, Justice.
Appellees have filed a strong motion for rehearing, attacking our opinion wherein we held that Reese and Bell have no accrued claim against Pera and Nickey Naumovich, reasserting that this case is controlled by our Supreme Court’s holding in the case of Colby v. McClendon, Tex.Civ.App., 116 S.W.2d 505. In Colby v. McClendon the background shows two final judgments, one by the Oklahoma court finally determining the rights of the parties in a judgment for a liquidated sum and by our Texas courts in a judgment based upon the Oklahoma final judgment. The garnishment in the Colby-McClendon case was issued after judgment. True, the original judgment in Oklahoma was in a suit on an unliquidated demand and the Colby-McClendon case is authority for a holding that before Mrs. McClendon’s unliquidated demand was liquidated by the Oklahoma judgment she was a creditor. However the Colby-McClendon case aid not hold, and is not an authority for a holding, that the unliquidated demand for damages before it became liquidated by the final judgment, was such a claim as may be made the ground for the issuance, in an original suit based on an unliquidated demand, before judgment, of a temporary injunction to prevent defendant from disposing of his property for-a consideration not valuable.
We have been unable to find, and the parties have not cited to us, a case in point on the question here.
Our independent search has convinced us we were correct in our original holding. The headnote to section 461, 37 C.J.S., Fraudulent Conveyances, p. 1309, is as follows: “An injunction to prevent a debtor from disposing of his property with intent to defraud his creditors may be granted on the application of a creditor having a lien, by judgment or otherwise, on the property, or, under some statutes or the facts of some cases, even on the application of a creditor without a lien; but, generally speaking, in the absence of a permissive statute, such an injunction will not be granted in favor of a creditor without a judgment or other lien.”
Irwin v. Meese, 325 Mich. 349, 38 N.W. 2d 869, 870, holds as follows:
“The general rule is that, in the absence of a statute so authorizing, a court of equity is without jurisdiction to sequester, seize, enjoin transfer of, or otherwise provisionally impound assets for application upon a money demand that is not secured by a lien on such assets and has not been reduced to judgment. For annotation of the subject see 116 A.L.R. 270 et seq.
“ ‘Equity is without jurisdiction to restrain, at the instance of the plaintiff in a pending action of tort, the conveyance by the defendant in that action of his property for the alleged purpose of defeating the collection of a possible recovery in the tort action.’ Friedling v. Freedman (syllabus), 44 App.D.C. 191.
“ ‘Equity will not enjoin a defendant from the free disposal of his property on the application of a creditor who sets up no lien upon or title to the property, and who presents no other equity than his simple *422fear that when he reduces his claim to judgment, he will not be able to find property on which to levy it.’ Dortic v. Dugas (syllabus), 52 Ga. 231.
“ ‘An injunction to restrain parties from disposing of goods, pending a trial' at law, so that they may be levied upon by virtue of a judgment, which the complainant hopes to obtain, is improper.’ Phelps v. Foster (syllabus), 18 Ill. 309.
“See also: Dunham v. Kauffman, 385 Ill. 79, 52 N.E.2d 143, 154 A.L.R. 90.
“ ‘Equity court is without jurisdiction to sequester defendant’s assets on complaint of tort claimant, whose claim has not been reduced to judgment at law, or to enjoin defendant from transferring such assets, in absence of authority of rule of court or statute.’ Martin v. James B. Berry Sons’ Co., Inc., (syllabus), 1 Cir., 83 F.2d 857.
“Decree dismissing plaintiff’s bill of complaint affirmed, with costs to defendants.”
After full reconsideration of the question, we hold, in line with the general rule, that in the absence of a Texas permissive statute, a temporary injunction will not issue, before final judgment, in favor of a creditor with only an unliquidated demand to restrain a conveyance which, were the debt liquidated, would be one in fraud of creditors.
The second motion for rehearing is therefore overruled.