Byrnes v. Missouri Nat. Bank
Opinion of the Court
Circuit Judge. This is an appeal of James W. Byrnes, sueeessory receiver of the Forked Leaf White Oak Lumber Company, from an order of the court below to pay over to the Missouri National Bank $2,000 of the moneys he collected from the Fisher Body Company, a corporation, in payment for lumber and other materials which his predecessor, Edward R. Butler, had sold out of the property of the lumber company in his possession and control as such receiver, and it presents the question of the authority of a receiver, without the order, direction, or knowledge of the court, whose instrumentality he is, to borrow money to pay the liability he incurs as receiver, and to pledge the choses in action or other property of the corporation which he holds as trustee for its creditors and stockholders to secure the repayment of the moneys he borrows.
The facts which condition the answer to this question in this ease are these: On April 23, 1921, in a suit in equity between Lima Locomotive Works, complainant,, and the lumber company, defendant, the court
Mr. Butler, who attempted to assign as security for his borrowings the accounts of Ms costáis que trust, the creditors and stockholders of the lumber company, was the receiver of a purely private business concern, not of a quasi public corporation such as a railroad company, and there is a broad distinction between the two classes. Wood v. Guarantee Trust Co., 128 U. S. 416, 9 S. Ct. 131, 32 L. Ed. 472. He was a receiver appointed by a federal eourt and not by a state court, and, in the absence of special' authority, the general rule of the federal courts is that the powers of their receivers are very limited, and that they have no authority to 'borrow money, much less to pledg’e or mortgage all or specific parts of the property of their eestuis qne trust In their possession as trastees to pay debts or to secure the repayment of money they borrow.
Ordinarily the- main purpose of the appointment of a receiver of a private business corporation or company is to prevent, not to promote, the borrowing of money upon its assets and the increase of the indebtedness secured thereon. Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203, 218, 21 L. Ed. 447; Union Trust Co. v. Ill. Midland Ry. Co., 117 U. S. 434, 476, 477, 6 S. Ct. 809, 29 L. Ed. 963; Thompson v. Phenix Ins. Co., 136 U. S. 287, 10 S. Ct. 1019, 34 L. Ed. 408.
Counsel for the bank cite, in support of the order below, Cake v. Mohun, 164 U. S. 311, 315, 17 S. Ct. 100, 101, 41 L. Ed. 447, and this quotation from the opinion in that ease:
“Admitting to its fullest extent the general proposition laid down by tMs court in Cowdrey v. Galveston, Houston, etc., R. Co., 93 U. S. 352, 23 L. Ed. 950, that a receiver has no authority, as such, to continue and carry on the business of which he is appointed receiver, there is a discretion on the part of the eourt to permit this to be done temporarily when the interests of the parties seem to require it. Under such circumstances, the power of the receiver to incur obligations for supplies and materials incidental to the business follows as a necessary incident to the receivership.”
But in that ease the property was a hotel in operation. The receiver was ordered by
The court below had the judicial power, after hearing or giving the parties in interest a chance to be heard, to authorize its receiver to borrow money in specific amounts and on specific terms and to secure the repayment of that money by a pledge or mortgage of some or all of the property of the lumber company, subject to prior liens. But the court’s appointment of him as receiver, and its authority to him to operate the property of the lumber company, gave him no such power. The court, after admirable caution and deliberate consideration of the petition of the receiver for authority to borrow money, on the written consent of the great majority in number and amount of the unsecured creditors of the lumber company, empowered the receiver to borrow not exceeding $150,000 on his certificates of indebtedness secured, subject to prior mortgage and other liens, by all the property in the possession of the receiver and by 40 per cent, of the proceeds of the sales that the receiver should make of lumber, ties, and other forest products of the property in his hands. This order was an express grant of authority to the receiver to borrow money and give security for repayment by the method, on the terms, and to the amount there specified, and an equally expressed denial and prohibition of his borrowing money or securing its repayment in any other way or to any greater extent without the further order of the court. In re C. M. Burkhalter & Co. (D. C.) 182 F. 353, 355, 356; Haines v. Buckeye Wheel Co., 224 F. 289, 295, 296, 139 C. C. A. 525; Kirker v. Owings, 98 F. 499, 510, 39 C. C. A. 132; Gutterson et al. v. Lebanon Iron & Steel Co. (C. C.) 151 F. 72, 77.
Mir. Butler was without lawful authority or power to borrow as receiver and to charge the property of his cestuis que trust, the lumber company, its creditors and stockholders, with liability to repay this $2,000 or to secure its repayment by a pledge or mortgage of any of their choses in action or any other property, and the order of the court below must be reversed. It is so ordered.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting).
I am constrained to dissent from the conelu-* sion of the majority in this case. In my conception, the record does not merely present “the question of authority of a receiver without the order, direction, or knowledge of the court, whose instrumentality he was, to borrow the money to pay the liability he incurs as receiver, and to pledge the choses in action or other property of the corporation which he holds for its creditors and stockholders to secure the repayment of the money he borrows.” I think the question presented is rather “whether a court of equity may not ratify the unauthorized act of its receiver (where his good faith is not questioned) in temporarily borrowing money to pay valid current bills, when to deny ratification ■ would unjustly enrich the trust at the expense of an outsider.”
The receiver had been appointed and authorized to “operate and run all mills, stores, logging roads, railroads, and other proper
For the reasons I have stated, the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.
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