Court Opinion

ID: 7942809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-08 23:16:50.446943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:33:47.783387
License: Public Domain

Grant, J.
(after stating the facts). The statute provides that “no injunction shall issue to stay the trial of any personal action in a court of law, until the party applying therefor shall execute a bond with one or more sufficient sureties to the plaintiff in such action at law,” etc. 1 Comp. Laws, § 502.
The trial at law is not stayed by the injunction, and counsel assert in their brief that the case has since been tried. *171There is no evidence of this in the record, and we cannot now consider it. The respondent, in refusing to dissolve the injunction, stated that “ the trial of the cause is not sought to be restrained, and whether the present restraining order would be of any force to prevent the removal of the property after judgment I do not now determine.” No precedents under this statute or a similar one are cited. Probably the question is new. The claim of the bondholders is that this ponderous machinery was sold and purchased with the knowledge that it must necessarily become so affixed to the realty as to become a part of it. The bill of complaint asserts that the bondholders had no knowledge of the contract between relator and the National Construction Company, and that they are innocent mortgagees.
Suppose that a vendor were to sell brick, stone, or iron to form a part of the structure of a building, upon the condition that the title thereto should remain in him until payment of the purchase price; that the building were constructed; and the owner should sell or mortgage it to a party who had no knowledge of such contract of sale— would the vendor have the legal right to tear down the building to take his brick, stone, or iron ? As between the vendor and vendee, the vendee may be bound by such conditions; but it does not follow that the vendor would possess such right against an innocent vendee or mort-. gagee. The court now has only the allegations in the bill to act upon. The evidence may disclose a different state of facts. It is not claimed that the property will suffer injury if left in the building until the rights of the parties are determined. If the allegations of the bill are true, the removal of this property will result in great and irreparable injury to the bondholders. If the contention of the bondholders is correct, they are under no obligation to pay the debt due the relator. They ought not, therefore, in good conscience, to be required to give bond to pay it until the right of relator to seize its property is determined. If it is determined in the suit at law that that right exists, and *172there is a balance still unpaid, the bondholders ought in good conscience and equity to have the right of payment, and thus avoid the destruction of their property.
The contention on behalf of relator appears to be that, to restrain the removal of the property is, in effect, to restrain the trial of the suit at law, and therefore in violation of the statute. We think otherwise. We agree with the circuit judge in holding that the statute does not apply to such a case as this, and that it was no abuse of discretion to keep this property in place and intact until the rights of the parties are determined.
The writ is denied.
The other Justices concurred.