42 S.E.2d 739 | Ga. | 1947
1. A failure to give notice to the defendant in error, as required by Rule 7 of the new rules of appellate procedure, is not reviewable by this court.
2. Where in an equity case assets are being administered, and an order has been entered and published in compliance with the act approved *232 March 24, 1939 (Ga. L. 1939, p. 344; Code, § 37-410), one who does not seek to intervene until after the time fixed therefor is barred from intervening and from participating in the distribution of the funds in court, whether he seeks to do so by a new claim or attempts to amend a previous claim.
On February 3, 1947, the auditor presented his report, and it was ordered filed. On February 11, 1947, Sarah R. McCandless, the defendant in error, filed a petition, in which she sought to file a claim based upon certain preferred stock that she allegedly held in the corporation. She offered the instrument as an amendment to her claim on common stock, which claim had been filed on February 3, 1943; and she alleged that her claim on the preferred stock had been omitted by inadvertence. The intervention, over the objections of the plaintiffs in error, was allowed and ordered *233 filed. On February 17, 1947, Girard M. Cohen and E. Maude Cohen, the plaintiffs in error, who were creditors of the corporation, filed a petition, objecting to the intervention of the defendant in error, and praying for an order rescinding the order allowing her intervention filed. The trial court denied the prayers of their petition. The exception is to the judgment allowing the intervention, and to the judgment on the petition to rescind the order allowing the intervention. 1. The motion to dismiss the bill of exceptions is based upon a failure to give the notice provided for in Rule 7 of the new rules of appellate procedure (Ga. L. 1946, pp. 726, 735). This rule requires notice to the defendant in error before the bill of exceptions shall be certified by the trial judge, unless there be a waiver by the defendant in error. Rule 12 (Ga. L. 1946, p. 739) provides in part: "The action or non-action of the trial judge as to requiring notice under this Section and Part 7 of this report, which is to be added to the Code as a new Section, shall not be reviewable." It follows that this court is without authority to consider the question raised in the motion to dismiss.
2. The Code, Ann. Supp., § 37-410 (Ga. L. 1939, p. 344), provides as follows: "In all equity cases now pending, or hereafter pending, in the superior courts of this State, wherein assets of either or both parties to the cause are being administered, marshaled or otherwise disposed of by the court, the court, upon motion of either party to the case, or, on its own motion at least 60 days before the trial term, shall pass an order to be entitled in the cause and addressed to all parties concerned, requiring all parties claiming an interest in said assets to intervene in the cause not later than a certain date, which is to be fixed by the court, of not less than 60 days from the date of the order and not more than 90 days from the date thereof, and after such order is so passed the same shall be published in the newspaper in the county, in which the case is pending and in which the sheriff's advertisements are published, twice a month for two consecutive months. After said order has been so passed and published, and after the expiration of the time for intervening, as fixed by the order, all parties interested in said assets shall be forever barred from intervening in the case." *234
In Suttles v. J. B. Withers Cigar Co.,
We think that the ruling made in the Suttles case is controlling in the instant case. The claim filed, by way of intervention on the part of the defendant in error, on February 3, 1943, was based upon common stock held by her. This claim had been recognized *235 and paid. The claim that she filed on February 11, 1947, was based upon preferred stock owned by her; and we think that it was an entirely new claim, in no way connected with the first claim, and could not be tacked on by way of amendment to a claim based upon common stock, which had been terminated by being paid. Moreover, we think that it makes no difference whether the second claim be considered as an amendment to the first claim or as a new and independent claim. The very purpose of the act of 1939, supra, was to fix a date certain when an estate being administered by an officer of the court, such as the estate was in the instant case, can be finally closed, rights fixed, and distribution of the assets made. If claims are to be recognized. either by way of amended claims or as new claims, after the date fixed in accordance with the provisions of the act, the very purpose of the law would be defeated.
It follows that the trial court committed error in allowing the intervention.
Judgment reversed. All the Justices concur, except Atkinson,J., who dissents.