140 Ga. 212 | Ga. | 1913
(After stating the foregoing facts.)
1. We do not think that the court erred in overruling the demurrer to the petition for interpleader. Under the allegations of the petition the sole question for determination was, which of the two parties whom the plaintiff sought to have interplead had procured a purchaser? The petitioner admitted that he owed one or the other the sum of $387, and set up facts to show that this identical sum was due by him to one or other of the two real-estate firms. The petition made him practically a stakeholder, owing but one debt to one of two parties, which he could not safely pay to either without the hazard of having to pay the debt twice; and the question as to which was the rightful claimant of the debt depended, according to his allegations, upon the determination of a single issue of fact, which was, as we have stated, who had procured the purchaser? This was a question of fact, in the solution of which, under the allegations of the petition, the petitioner had no interest whatever. And moreover, this issue of fact (the sole issue for determination before it could be rightly determined which of the two claimants was entitled to the fund) was an issue made by the claimants themselves, in the suit brought by one of them and in the suit which the other was threatening to bring. We mean by this that this plain, single issue of fact was involved in the two suits, the one actually brought and the other threatened, as stated in the petition. Under the allegations of the petition the plaintiff therein clearly owed but a single debt. No question of a double liability could arise under the allegations of the petition; and consequently the object of the petition for interpleader was against the danger of a "double vexation against a single liability.” The allegations of the petition, taken as true, show the right of the plaintiff to an order requiring the defendants to interplead.
2. But upon the hearing to determine whether the injunction should be granted and the parties required to interplead, under the issues made by the allegations contained in the answer of the plaintiffs in error and the evidence submitted to support these al
Judgment reversed.