Court Opinion

ID: 6992058
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 03:26:42.386981+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:09:38.866807
License: Public Domain

Moran, J. On the hearing of the motion for the injunction, appellant introduced affidavits of different persons and certain evidence taken on a hearing before the master for the purpose of showing that appellee had not maintained the neutral attitude that is required of one who files a bill of interpleader, but that she had espoused the cause of Mrs. Humble, and was in collusion with her in filling the cross-bill, and on this appeal the chief portion of appellant’s argument is devoted to establishing from the evidence thus introduced at the hearing of the motion that appellee did not stand indif. ferent between Mrs. Curtis and Mrs. Humble, but colluded with the latter, and an elaborate citation of authorities to show that if there has been collusion with one of the parties or a failure to maintain neutrality as between them the bill of interpleader can not be maintained. It is a sufficient answer to appellant’s contention on this branch of the case, that the allegation in the sworn bill that appellee does not in any respect collude with either of the parties touching the matters set up in the bill, nor is she indemnified by either of them, nor has she exhibited the cross-bill at the request of either of them, but of her own free will, and to avoid being molested and harassed touching the matters set forth, is conclusive as to the question of collusion at this stage of the case. In Langston v. Boylston, 2 Ves. 101, on a motion for an injunction on a bill of interpleader, it was attempted to be shown that there was a collusion by the plaintiff; the chancellor said that he must take it for granted that there was no collusion, for he could not determine the affidavit of the complainant to be false on a counter-affidavit. In Stevenson v. Anderson, 2 Ves. & Bea. 407, on a similar motion, the chancellor said that though he doubted whether there was perfect good faith on the part of the plaintiff, the court was in the first instance concluded by his affidavit that there is no collusion, and will not admit an affidavit to the contrary, and in Manby v. Robinson, L. R., 4 Ch. App. 347, it is held that the plaintiff’s affidavit of no collusion in an interpleader suit can not be rebutted before the hearing by a counter-affidavit, or other evidence, and the plaintiff is entitled, notwithstanding such counter-affidavit, to an order of payment of the fund into court, and for an injunction. See also Toulmin v. Reid, 14 Beav. 499; Fahie v. Lindsay, 8 Oregon, 474, 2 Dan. Ch. Pr. 1563. Defending a suit brought by one of the claimants to the fund, if the defense is not too far persisted in, should not prevent one from filing a bill of interpleader. In Jew v. Wood it was insisted that the plaintiff should not be allowed to file the bill because he had attempted to defend himself in an action at law, and had himself brought an action of replevin which was an attack on the right of one of the parties, but it was held by the Master of the Bolls, that the defense set up at law ought not to preclude the plaintiff from relief on his interpleader in equity; and though in Conish v. Tanner, 1 Y. & J. 333, it was held that a party could not file his bill after verdict where he had availed himself of every defense which he could use at law, in Hamilton v. Marks, 5 De Gex. & Sm., it was said that it was no objection to an interpleader that it was filed after verdict at law where the action at law was only to ascertain the amount of damages; and in Jacobson v. Blackhurst, 2 John. & Hem. 486, where a plaintiff in an inter-pleader suit had previously set up a claim of lien and had pleaded it in an action at law, it was held no bar to the inter-pleader when it was shown that he had, concurrently with filing the bill, withdrawn the plea. The record in this case shows that the answer of appellee in the foreclosure suit commenced against her by appellant has been amended by leave of court, so as to eliminate from it all hostile or antagonistic assertions, and to leave Only a statement of Mrs. Humble’s claim as set up in her bill, without any asseverations as to the truth thereof. We think she has not maintained her defensive attitude so long or carried the defense so far that she should, under the circumstances, be held barred on that ground from maintaining her bill. This bill is not a- strict bill of interpleader. In such a bill the complainant must be a simple stakeholder, and must admit the whole sum constituting the fund to which-the conflicting claims are made to be due, and make no claim, and assert no interest in it, and seek no relief by the bill other than to be no further vexed by the conflicting claimants, and it must be shown that the claimants both seek the same thing or fund. Story’s Eq. Pl. Secs. 292, 293. But there is a remedy by bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader in cases where the plaintiff claims for himself some interest or has some right related to the subject-matter in question which entitles him to a particular relief, or where lie does not admit the whole of defendants’ claim, or the defendants claim different amounts. 2 Dan. Ch. P. 1571. In Mohawk & Hudson R. R. Co. v. Clute, 4 Paige, 384, where two different tax collectors were seeking a tax of a different amount upon the same property, and where only one tax was justly due, the hill was retained as being a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader to ascertain which of the claimants has the legal right to collect the tax, and the case was likened to the case in Gill Eq. Rep. 4, where one who was entitled to the equity of redemption in land filed a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader against two conflicting claimants of a fund, the amount of which was a lien on the premises. See also Dorn v. Fox, 61 N. Y. 264. In Badeau v. Rogers, 2 Paige, 209, a complainant was allowed to file his interpleader to redeem from a mortgage where there were conflicting claimants to the proceeds, and where a bill to foreclose the mortgage had been filed by one of the claimants. ; I am oí opinion that the allegations in this bill, although it is in some respects inartificially drawn, entitle appellee to maintain it as a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader. It appears that there are two different claimants who have suits pending against appellee claiming the same fund—the purchase money which remains unpaid on appellee’s lot; that one of them claims the whole of the said money, $1,500, with all accrued interest thereon, and the other claims $1,250 of said money with interest on said amount from a stated date. That one of the claimants insists that the debt is due because of a default in the payment of interest, and seeks to foreclose the mortgage on appellee’s property and sell it, and that the interest was not paid because the other claimant had filed a bill claiming it, and forbidding its payment; that neither of said claimants had made the other a party in their respective bills and that appellee is ignorant of the claimants’ respective rights, and can not decide between them and pay the one without incurring the risk of being finally obliged to pay the other. She seeks relief also in that she wishes not to be compelled to pay the money until it is due by the terms of her note, and hence she was not at the filing of the bill an indifferent stakeholder, ready to pay the whole disputed fund into court. She could not do that without sacrificing her own rights, nor could she persist in refusing to do so with safety, if Mrs. Humble’s claim to the fund can not be sustained. There are peculiar features in this case not found in other cases, but it seems to me to present stronger grounds for equitable relief than many cases in which such relief has been granted. The rules of courts of equity in granting relief are flexible. That no adjudged case is found presenting precisely the same ground for relief, is no reason for refusing a remedy in a given case. The case is analogous to many of the cases which have been cited, and in my opinion comes within well settled equitable principles. The appellee was not bound to take the hazard of an adverse decision in either one of the suits, and should not be vexed by the defense of both of them, and has the right to compel adverse claimants to interplead, and relieve her from the burden that would otherwise be imposed upon her. Before the order appealed from was entered she had paid into court the interest that was due upon the note, on a bill similar to this bill, which had been filed in that court as a cross-bill in the foreclosure suit, and which same cross-bill was dismissed because of the pendency of this one. The interest so paid into the Superior Court is directed by this order to be paid into the Circuit Court, and as all that in fact remained to be done to have it in court was to transfer it from the treasury of one court to another, appellee was, in our opinion, entitled to the order restraining appellant from foreclosing the mortgage on her lot for a failure to pay the whole debt, which was not then due, unless Mrs. Humble’s claim to the fund is baseless as against appellant. As the whole amount of the indebtedness has now become due by efflux of time, it will be proper for the court, by a further order, to require appellee to pay the whole amount of principal and interest into court, on terms as to a release of her property by the trustee that the chancellor shall deem just. There is a technical objection to this bill that does not appear to have been made to it at any stage of the contention, and which is not made here, but which we notice—that the complainant, if she is so advised, may so amend as to bring her case into conformity with chancery practice. Interpleader is an original bill, and is not the proper subject of a cross-bill. The bill in this case contains all that would be necessary in an original bill, but it contains more and is named a cross-bill. For the purpose of the motion and on this review the bill maybe regarded as an original bill. Foss v. First Nat. Bank of Denver, 1 McCrary, 474, 480. It has been suggested that the order appealed from should be reversed, for the reason that appellee could obtain the relief sought by setting up Mrs. Huinble’s claim in her answer to the Curtis foreclosure suit, and requiring Mrs. Humble to be made a party defendant to said suit, and on the first hearing of the case in this court an opinion was filed reversing the injunction order on that ground. It was said to be the aim of a court of equity to do complete justice by settling the rights of all persons interested in the subject-matter of the suit, so that those who are compelled to perform the decree may do so safely; and that if appellant made Humble a defendant, or if Humble made appellant a defendant, a decree in either suit rvould be a protection to appellee against further claims by either party; therefore the order for injunction was wrong, because there is no need of it. I express no opinion as to whether Mrs. Humble would be held to be a necessary party to the Curtis foreclosure suit, because, as it seems to me, no such question is presented by this record, and it will be time enough to decide that point when a record is before us on which it arises. It can not be "suggested here to defeat this interpleader. The doctrine that an injunction should only be granted where positive injury is made to appear, has no application to the order restraining a defendant in an interpleader from the further prosecution of an action against the complainant. An injunction or restraining order in such a case is but an incident of the principal order that the defendants interplead. Whether the complainant has stated a case which compels the defendants to interplead, is the main question. The defendants may interplead without being enjoined, but where an action is already pending it is usual to restrain the furtlier prosecution of it on the fund being paid into court. ^The right to tile an interpleader can not be defeated by the suggestion that if the party pursued some other course no injunction would be necessary. That would make the right to an equitable remedy depend on the propriety of granting relief that is merely auxiliary to the main relief sought. Where the bill contains equity, and a restraining order is applied for, the question is whether such order is necessary to the attainment of the complete relief sought—not whether, if the complainant had elected to séek some other or different relief, ho such order would be needed. A bill can not be dismissed for want of equity because an injunction may be necessary, which, if the complainant had not presented the equity contained in his bill, need not have been issued./ The doctrine of parties that is contended for, would be just as effectual to dismiss a bill of interpleader where no injunction issued as where such an order was necessary; indeed, if the doctrine is sound, it would be a good ground of demurrer to a bill of interpleader in all cases where a suit in chancery had been commenced by one of the defendants to the bill. Such a doctrine would indeed be a novelty in equity jurisprudence. No case is to be found which sustains such a view, but many are inconsistent with it, and some, as will be seen, hold a doctrine directly contrary. Interpleader is an old head of equity jurisprudence, and such bills seem to have been filed as well where suits in equity were pending to which the conflicting claimant might have been made a party, as where actions at law had been brought. In Birch v. Corbin, 1 Cox R. 144, a bank which held certain funds and was made defendant in a bill filed by a claimant of the funds, moved the court for a rule on the complainant in the bill to show cause why he had not brought the cause to a hearing or enjoined other claimants to the fund from proceeding against the bank in an action at law; the court said it was impossible for the bank to have the relief, but as the. bank was a stakeholder, it might file its bill of interpleader; however, to get the relief sought, it must apply as a plaintiff. If the bank could protect itself by suggesting that other parties claimed, and that they should have been made parties, it is singular that the chancellor should have driven it to a bill of interpleader. In Lowe v. Richardson, 3 Mad. 277, a bill of interpleader was filed by a captain against the consignee and a person who claimed against the bill of lading, but, it appearing that the defendant who so claimed had filed a prior claim against the captain and the consignee, and obtained an injunction against the captain restraining him from delivering the cargo to the consignee, an injunction on the interpleader was refused, as the captain was protected by the former suit, and his bill was unnecessary. There, it will be noticed, all the persons in interest were before the court as parties. This case is cited (in Badeau v. Rogers, 2 Paige, 209) in support of the suggestion by the chancellor that a bill of interpleader was unnecessary in that case, because suits in chancery were pending in which the claimants had made ’each other defendants, and to which the complainant was a party, and in which he might, by petition, have had the same relief. These cases are very far from being authorities that a bill of interpleader will not be allowed when, by bringing in a new party, it could be avoided; they go rather upon the principle that, where a suit is pending between all the parties, full relief will be given there to all, and resort to another suit is unnecessary. But there are a number of cases in which a contrary doctrine has been distinctly held, and where a right to file an interpleader has been sustained when a bill was already pending in which all the parties were in court, and injunctions have in such cases issued in the interpleader suit to restrain proceedings in the prior suit. See Warrington v. Wheatstone, 1 Jac. 203, where one injunction went to restrain an action at law by one claimant, and another to restrain a bill in chancery by another. Also Morgan v. Marsack, 2 Mer. 107, and Crawford v. Fisher, 10 Sim. 479. If the doctrine under consideration was known to equity practice, the question arises, why, in these cases, which were well considered, it was not directed that the claimant in the action at law be made a party to the suit of the claimants in equity, so that the holder of the fund might be protected, and the interpleader made unnecessary. In Prudential Ins. Co. v. Thomas, L. R., 3 Ch. App., the precise point is, in effect, decided. There one Thomas filed a bill against the company, claiming certain insurance money. A Mrs. Black also claimed the fund, hut she was not made a party to Thomas’ suit. The company filed its interpleader, and obtained an injunction restraining Thomas from proceeding in his suit. A motion was made to dissolve the injunction, and the court in deciding the case said: “ One of the claimants was proceeding in equity to enforce payment, and the other was declaring that she would hold the company responsible if they paid that claimant; and it appears to me that there was a reason why the company should force them to inter-plead. If Thomas had proceeded at law, it would not have been in his power to have made Mrs. Black a party to the litigation, but having determined to come into a court of equity, nothing would have been easier for him than to have made her a party. He knew that she was a person claiming; he knew that the only reason the company alleged for not paying was, that she was making an adverse claim, and therefore a bona fide litigation by him ought to have included Mrs. Black as a party to this suit. Certainly, the existence of that suit did not stand in the way of the plain tiff’sfiling a bill of interpleader.” Clearly, if the right to make Mrs. Black a party to Thomas’ suit would bar the company’s right to an interpleader, here was an opportunity for the application of such a rule. The right to file a bill of interpleader has been recognized in Hew York, where, under the code, the court might in its discretion, direct that all parties in interest should be made parties in the pending actions. It is said by the Court of Appeals, that the only remedy strictly of right to a party sued by one of several claimants of the same debt or duty, who claims no interest himself, and knows not which to pay, is by an action in the nature of a bill of interpleader, and that the party was not bound to apply to the court to exercise the discretion given by the code to bring in as defendants to a pending suit all other claimants. Bary v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 53 N. Y. 536; Wood v. Swift, 81 N. Y. 31; N. Y. & H. R. R. R. Co. v. Haws, 56 N. Y. 175, reversing a decision of general term, dismissing the inter-pleader on the ground that the plaintiff might have made one of the claimants a party to the other claimant’s suit. It is said in some of the cases, the filing of bills of inter-pleader is not to be encouraged. Chancellor Walworth says, in Bedell v. Hoffman, 2 Paige, 201, that they “ should never be brought except in cases where the complainant can in no other way protect himself from an unjust litigation, in which he has no interest.” But by this the court did not mean to say that such a bill should not be filed where the plaintiff had another equitable remedy open to him. The facts of the case in which the remark was made explain what was meant. The defendants were actually litigating their claims when the interpleader bill was filed; the complainant was in possession, and neither party had commenced any proceedings against him. He really did not need to resort to the court at all. The doctrine of the parties, as well as the doctrine of inter-pleader, is a doctrine of equity. A defendant may have an equitable right to have new parties made in a suit against him, and may at the same time have the right to file an interpleader, but there is no rule which requires him to choose one remedy in equity instead of another. If he has a remedy at law, he can not come into equity, but he can not be driven from one remedy in equity because he may have another equitable remedy which may be regarded as more convenient or less troublesome to pursue. This is well illustrated in the Board of Education v. Scoville, 13 Kan. 17. There a bill in the nature of a bill of interpleader was filed, and the express objection was taken that it was unnecessary, as the conflicting claimants could be made parties to a pending action and the rights of all parties determined, and the plaintiff protected by the judgment. But the court said, in overruling the point, “ There never has been any rule in equity that we are aware of requiring a party to resort to one equitable remedy in prefer ence to some other equitable remedy, where the two remedies are equally applicable to the facts constituting the cause of action or defense, and where both are equally available to the parties; and we think no such rule has ever existed.” It is useless-to extend the argument further. On both principle and authority it seems to me clear that appellee can not be defeated in her interpleader by the suggestion that she could have protected herself by seeking to have the claimants made defendants in each other’s suits. It follows from what has been said that the order appealed from must be affirmed.