Court Opinion

ID: 6812309
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 18:55:53.828971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:03:42.463603
License: Public Domain

Upon a Rehearing.
Buchanan, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court.
In the petition for rehearing it is insisted that J. W. Blanton, one of the appellees, had no right to be heard upon this appeal, because he had been adjudicated a bankrupt and his trustee appointed before the decree appealed from was entered; and that he, therefore, had no further rights or interest in the litigation.
The trustee was not made, and did not become, a party to the suit, either in the trial court or in this court. Blanton was made one of the appellees in this court and process served upon him. Under the Bankrupt Act of 1898, the trustee has the right to intervene and become a party to a suit prosecuted by or against a bankrupt at the time of his adjudication, but he is not bound to do so. Upon the failure of the trustee to apply to be substituted in place of the bankrupt, or to become a party to the suit, it seems that it may be prosecuted or defended by the bankrupt, whether the result of the litigation enures to his own benefit or the benefit of his creditors; and the trustee, although he does not become a party to the suit, will be bound by the judgment or decree entered in the cause. See 1 Remington on Bankruptcy, secs. 1640, 1644; Griffin v. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 11 Am. Bankrupt Rep. 622-3, 119 Ga. 664, 46 S. E. 870; Herring v. Downing, 146 Mass. 10, 15 N. E. 116; Thatcher v. Rockwell, 105 U. S. 469-70, 46 L. Ed. 949; Brown v. Wygant, 163 U. S. 623-4, 41 L. Ed. 284, 16 Sup. Ct. 1159; First National Bank of Sacksboro v. Lassiter, 196 U. S. 115, 119, 25 Sup. Ct. 206.
*662We are of opinion that Blanton had the right to assign cross-error under Bule VIII of the court.
The other grounds relied on for a rehearing were fulty considered before entering the decree complained of. Upon a reconsideration of those grounds, we see no reason to change the conclusion reached. The opinion filed with the record upon the original hearing contains some slight inaccuracies of statement which have been corrected, and that opinion, as corrected, will be filed with the record.

Reversed in fart.