18 S.D. 182 | S.D. | 1904
This is an appeal from a judgment entered in favor of the appellant on the 7th day of July, 1903, and from an order made on the 20th day of April, 1903, refusing to vacate and set aside an order discharging the receiver and refusing to allow the application of said Allen G. Fisher, claimant and appellant, for an order making his judgment a preferred claim to the extent of $4,000, and directing its payment out of the assets of the defendant bank. It appears from the record that in February, 1898, the plaintiff, Winans, instituted an action against the First Bank of Edgemont, alleging its insolvency, and praying for the appointment of a receiver. The court appointed as receiver Wilbert W. Stewart, who gave bond and entered upon the discharge of his duty as. such, receiver. Upon making an examination of the bank, its assets seemed to have been removed therefrom, and thereupon a criminal action was instituted against the officers of the banks
It is contended by the appellant that he never consented to any release of the said lien, and that it has never been released nor discharged in any manner, and that said lien was a first lien upon the entire assets of the defendant, and that it has never been paid or satisfied; that the receiver never gave notice of his proposed application to be discharged as such receiver; that the appellant never had any information or knowledge of the discharge of the said receiver until the summer of the year 1901; that the report of the said receiver was not correct, in that it suppressed the fact that he had knowledge of the claim of appellant; that the purported settlement made by the receiver with the creditors of the said bank was made in fraud of the right of the appellant.
Respondents contend, on the other hand: (1) That they never had any actual notice or knowledge of the appellant’s claim; (2) that, if the appellant ever had any lien upon the assets of the bank, that lien was lost by delivering possession of the same to the receiver; (3) that an order discharging the receiver is not an appealable order; (4) that the settlement with creditors, having been made by consent of the attorney for the bank, was valid as against the appellant.
We are inclined to take the view that the respondents are right in their contention. The appellant failed to show that he had any valid lien upon the notes and vouchers turned.over by him to the receiver either under the statutes of Nebraska or the Code of this state. It is provided by the statute of Nebraska that “an attorney has a lien for a general balance of compensation upon any papers of his client which have come
Again, it is doubtful if the order appealed from is an appealable order. Mr. High, in speaking of receivers, says: “Being merely the officer or representative of the court, without personal interest or personal rights in the litigation, the right to discharge him rests with the court at any stage of the controversy, and from the exercise of this right he cannot.appeal. * * * And because the appointment of the receiver determines no rights between the parties litigant, his position being merely that of the court, a party to the case cannot appeal from an order discharging the receiver.” Possibly, had the claim of appellant been rejected, an appeal'1 would have been proper from the order rejecting the claim. But where, as in the case at bar, the appellant has failed to present his claim to the receiver or court within a reasonable time, and before proceedings resulting in the appointment of a receiver have been concluded and the assets of the bank distributed to the creditors thereof, an appeal cannot be regarded with favor by this court.
So far as the appeal is taken from the judgment purporting to have been rendered by the court against the appellant denying bbn a lien upon the assets of the defendant bank, it may be st cient to say that there are no pleadings or findings of fact Leiore us upon which the judgment was based, and hence we could not. in any event, reverse the judgment. The judgment seems to have been based upon a “complaint on claim” made in the form of an affidavit by the appellant against
It may be proper to say that in the additional abstract on the part of the respondent the fact is called to our attention that the judgment entered on July 7, 1903, was vacated and set aside by the court on August 1st of that year; but as that judgment was vacated and set aside subsequently to the taking of the appeal by the appellant, the action of the court in that behalf cannot affect the decision on this appeal.
Finding no error in the record available to the appellant on this appeal, the orders of the court below appealed from are affirmed.