Court Opinion

ID: 9306199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-12-02 17:17:10.937649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:13:55.135380
License: Public Domain

Sac®, J.,
(after stating the facts as above.') The demurrer is on behalf of the respondent Brown, upon the ground that the bill shows no cause for equitable relief against him. The contention of counsel is that he was no party to the trust agreement set up in the bill, whereby $10,-650 of the purchase price was transferred by Sinton to Taft, to be held by him until an order could be obtained from a court of competent jurisdiction directing the payment of that money to complainants in a proceeding that would operate as a protection to Sinton, and that in the mean time they should hold said fund in trust for the complainants. Counsel say that the rights of Brown could in no manner be affected by that arrangement, and that neither the pasture cornpany nor the complainants, nor both combined, with or without the concurrence of Sin-ton, could create a trust controlling Brown’s rights in the fund. Nothing of that sort is claimed or set up in the bill. It is-perfectly clear that the rights of Brown could not be affected or in any way abridged by any agreement to which he was not a party. Nothing of the sort is claimed on behalf of the complainants. On the contrary, they express! 3^ recognize that the trust agreement was subject to whatever rights Brown had in the premises. They do claim that Brown was bound by his agreement vri.th.the complainants to take á mortgage as specified in the bill for his claim, and all that was stipulated for in the. trust arrangement was that the money should be left in the hands of Taft, for Sinton, until an order could be obtained from a court of competent jurisdiction directing its payment to complainants. The demurrer must be overruled. The averments of the bill are that the money was a trust fund in the' hands of Charles P. Taft for the purposes stated in the bill. The subsequent transfer of the money by Taft to Sinton did not and could not destroy the trust. What effect shall be given to this trust agreement is not a question now before the court. It was made after the commencement of Brown’s action in the state court, and while that was still pending. But this cause is not in conflict, nor in any sense an interference, with that action. This court cannot directly or indirectly enjoin proceedings in a state court. What has been done in the action there, if anything, does not yet appear. All that is now decided is that the bill states a case in favor of the complainants.
The objection that the complainants have a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law is not well founded. The bill avers a trust. The jurisdiction in equity is undoubted. It was argued upon the hearing of the demurrer that the holding by Taft was as bailee, and not as trustee. How it may turn out to be upon the testimony remains to be ascertained. We are now dealing with the averments of the bill, and, as they set forth the transfer and delivery of the money by Sinton to Taft, in trust for the purposes specified, there is nothing upon which the argument that this is a case of bailment can be sustained.
The objection that there is a misjoinder of parties complainant must also be overruled. The bill sets forth that, although Doddridge & Co. were in fact solvent, their means were unavailable for the conduct of their business and immediate payment of their debts, by reason of the *799failure of the pasture company to pay its liabilities to them, and that they therefore made an assignment of their property to their co-complainant MeCampbell, for the use and benefit of their creditors. There was no objection, under these circumstances, to making the partners of Doddridge & Co. co-complainants with the assignee, because it appears j'-'-om the face of the bill that there may be a surplus after discharging the liabilities of the partnership, which might, in that event, bo decreed to the partners themselves.