396 A.2d 510 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1978
This is an action in interpleader brought by the plaintiff as a stakeholder of a fund in the amount of $15,000. Originally named as defendants were F M Concrete Construction Company, the United States of America, Modern Concrete Pumping, Inc., and Patent Scaffolding Company. The defendant Patent Scaffolding Company was defaulted for failure to plead. Thereafter, an interlocutory judgment of interpleader was entered and the remaining parties to the litigation have now reached an agreement on the distribution of the $15,000 fund. The only issue before the court is the claim of the plaintiff that it is entitled to a reasonable attorney's fee and taxable costs to be paid out of the fund pursuant to §
The plaintiff bases its claim on the provisions of the interpleader statute, §
The plaintiff correctly points out that from an equitable point of view the fee and costs should be paid from the fund. The federal government took no action to foreclose on its tax lien but merely sat back and waited until the plaintiff, at its own expense, initiated this interpleader action. The government then filed its claim against the fund following the entry of the interlocutory judgment of interpleader, has negotiated a settlement with the other claimants to the fund and now objects to the *81 payment to the plaintiff of any attorney's fee or costs from the fund. It appears to the court that the position of the government is legally correct.
The general rule, which is embodied in the Connecticut interpleader statute, is that a party who is confronted with conflicting claims from various alleged creditors to a fund in his possession and who does not claim any interest in the fund, as is the case here, may in good faith interplead the various claimants, deposit the fund in court if ordered to do so, and then be paid his taxable costs and a reasonable attorney's fee from the fund. GlobeIndemnity Co. v. Puget Sound Co.,
In a case which appears to be on all fours with the case at bar, the court, referring to the case of UnitedStates v. Liverpool London Globe Ins. Co.,
supra, held as follows: "The determination of the Supreme Court on the facts of the Liverpool London
case that counsel fees could not be allowed is controlling here. It is not significant that the source of power used by the lower courts in that case to justify their allowance was a Texas rule while here it is inherent equity authority plaintiff asks this court to exercise. None of the three opinions in the Liverpool
case (the district court's opinion is reported as SunnylandWholesale Furniture Co. v. Liverpool London *82 Globe Ins. Co.,
The claim of the plaintiff for an attorney's fee and costs is disallowed.