168 Ga. 175 | Ga. | 1929
Colquitt Grady filed an equitable petition against the Information Buying Company, a corporation of Fulton County, which is alleged to be an agent for a special class of creditors in obtaining information of debtors,, making reports on debtors and prospective debtors* and acting as a collecting agency for the creditors of designated debtors to a pertain clientele. The petitioner alleged that about April 1, 1926, he was indebted to three classes of creditors, each of which is named, aggregating about $330. The first class were the holders of wage assignments addressed to the Central of Georgia Railway Company, each for a stated sum and for an “undivided interest in an alleged general fund due the petitioner at that time by said railway company as his employer.” This class of indebtedness aggregated about $101. A second class of named creditors are alleged to have been holders of promissory notes amounting to about $200; and the third to be an open account for a cash loan of $25, being an indebtedness of $27.50. The petitioner alleged that he had been referred by his creditors to the Information Buying Company as a place where he could “pool” his indebtedness, and this “pooling” was undertaken. As a result he was charged $44.75 for the cost of handling; $6.75 court cost; and $3 attorney’s fees. The total made an indebtedness of $360.30, which sum was reached by a consolidation of all the foregoing items of indebtedness. As a part of the “pooling” arrangement petitioner was required to consent to the drawing of one suit against him, in which all of the aforesaid creditors
Upon this paper, on April 23, 1926, the judge of the municipal court of Macon passed the following order: “And it is so ordered.” Process issued on April 22, 1926, upon the petition in which the Information Buying Company brought suit against Grady for the conversion of $360.30 of its money collected by him from the Central of Georgia Bailway Company for wages already earned, which it was alleged he had converted to his own use. Fi. fa. issued on said judgment on April 27, 1926. Grady alleged that he had paid $212.83 on the judgment, and in the meantime was adjudicated a bankrupt. The balance due on the judgment was listed in the schedule filed by him in the bankruptcy proceeding. The Information Buying Company sued out a series of garnishments against his wages earned with his employer, which wages were earned after January 17, 1927, when he was adjudicated a bankrupt; and notwithstanding his discharge in bankruptcy of the defendants debt he is harrassed and put to the unnecessary expense of defending against litigation which should never have been instituted, and as a result he has no adequate and complete remedy at law; and he prays that the court enjoin and stay the pending garnishment proceeding and cancel the judgment complained of, because the same has been discharged by bankruptcy. The defendant demurred to the petition, upon general and special grounds. The special demurrers were met by amendment. Upon the hearing the trial judge sustained the general demurrer and dismissed the petition.
Judgment affirmed.