Coates & Co. v. Allen
Coates & Co. v. Allen
Opinion of the Court
This case was before this court on the review of an injunction granted by Judge Stewart. The judgment was reversed, and the inj unction set aside. It is now insisted by defendant in error that the court below—the same judge presiding—was controlled by the ruling in that decision, and was compelled to sustain the demurrer and dismiss the bill; while the plaintiff in error insists that the bill has been so amended as to take the case out of that ruling; and not only from the amendments, but from the fact that the answers were then under consideration with depositions, etc., a new case is before us, not like that here before, and not controlled by the decision then rendered.
On a careful reading of this record arid a comparison of it with that, we must conclude • that the points decided then rule the case now.
.It is true that one judgment creditor makes his appearance, or their appearance, as the creditor is a firm, and it is urged that this fact takes the case without the first point then ruled, which was that, under the ruling in Culbedge & Hazlehurst vs. Adams
Besides, the amount of the judgments is quite small; the reditors who procured them were not parties to the bill originally, but were made so on the very eve of the trial of the demurrer, and were evidently then made parties, at that late hour, to save the bill brought by the heavy and real complainant creditors.
So that we think that the door is still shut, and these creditors cannot enter over the bar ruled to be in their way when the case was here on the injunction,—the bar that they had no judgment or other lien on the property sold to Comer & Co.
The able counsel for plaintiff in error seeks to take the case out of this 'ruling, too, by an amendment that the property has gone into the hands of innocent purchasers; but taking the whole bill as true, this cannot be, because the parties to whom Comer & Co. sold bought on time, it is alleged, and injunction was sought against them, and they had notice. And the chalybeate property is still in the possession of Allen.
The points then ruled against them are unaffected by the changes made in the case. It is the same case still, and is res adjudieata between these parties. The main point then decided was that Allen was not a trader in the
The amendment is that,
“At the time of the filing of the original bill Joseph Allen, the principal defendant, was an insolvent trader; that at the time said bill was filed, said Allen was engaged, as his only business and employment, in the buying and selling of cotton, mules,'etc., in the collection and payment of debts due him by note, mortgage, account, etc., connected with his business at Thomaston as a merchant; that when the bill was filed, it is true said Allen’s store had been closed, and he had made the pretended transfer of his stock of goods, store-house, notes, etc., as complained of in the original bill, but orators charge that, while said Allen was engaged in the sale of goods, etc., asa merchant, that a part of the trading and employment, connected with his business as a merchant, was the buying and selling of cotton and other farm products, mules, etc., in the payment and collection óf debts due him on credits-extended to his customers for.merchandise sold them on time, and orators aver and charge that said Allen never ceased the buying and selling of cotton and other farm products, mules, etc., up to the filing of said bill, but was so engaged as a trader at the time said bill was filed.”
It seems to us that the thing Allen was engaged in was merely the winding up of his business, as set out in the original bill, of merchandise, etc., in which hehad extended credits to his customers, and got their cotton on time in payment therefor; and if, as alleged, he had sold out notes, accounts, store-house, etc., to Comer & Co., and they to Cheney, that he was collecting for them, especially as it alleged in former parts of the bill or amendments that he was to have an interest, in consideration that the sale of these things was at a low price, and upon a confederacy to cheat the other creditors, as also alleged.
See Coates & Co. vs. Comer & Co., 69 Ca., 491; 68 Ib., 531; 65 Ib., 559; Ball vs. Lastinger, this term; 62 Ga., 623, 662; 61 Ib., 441; 58 Ib., 11; 63 Ib., 312, 163.
In Huff vs. Ripley & Tinsley et al., 58 Ga., 11, this court say (Chief Justice Warner delivering the opinion): “If, therefore, a party plaintiff can obtain as full and adequate relief for an injury done him by the fraudulent conduct of another in a court of law as in a court of equity, there is no reason' nor foundation for invoking the jurisdiction of the latter court, the more especially when that jurisdiction is sought for the purpose of bringing parties from the counT ties of their, residence, to litigate their rights in another and distant county-therefrom.”
At all events, the points decisive of the case were ruled when it was here before, and substantially the same case is again before us. We cannot do otherwise than affirm a judgment based on our own decision on the same facts substantially, and between the same parties.
Judgment affirmed.
42 GA., 124.
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