Meacham v. Pinson

Citations

• 60 Miss. 217

Syllabus

<p>1. Insolvent Estate. Dividend. Pro rata. Interlocutory order. Case in judgment.</p> <p>C. borrowed of Mrs. P. $6,000, and gave his promissory note to her for that amount, embracing in it the stipulation to pay all attorneys’ fees expended in collecting it, and depositing with her as collateral security $8,000 in certificates of stock in a certain bank. C. made default in the payment of his note, and died; and P. recovered judgment in the Circuit Court against the bank on the certificates of stock in an amount exceeding the sum due on the note. Upon appeal to this court it was held that she was only entitled to recover the amount due for loaned money, there being' no proof as to the attorneys’ fee. P. entered a remittitur of all above the amount due for the loan, and judgment was rendered accordingly. During the pendency of that suit O.’s estate was placed in the hands of a receiver, and was being administered in the Chancery Court as an insolvent estate; and P. probated against it her claim for $6,000. A dividend of twenty per cent was decreed upon all probated claims, thereby awarding a pro rata of $1,200 to P.; but the receiver refused to pay anything to P. until the termination of litigation between her and the bank. After that litigation terminated, she obtained from the Chancery Court an order directing the receiver to pay her so much of the dividend theretofore decreed to her as was necessary,to liquidate her attorneys’ fees in her suit against the bank', which she proved tobe $1,050. Prom that order the other creditors of C. appealed. Held, that the order appealed from was erroneous. P. was entitled to a pro rata on the amount of her attorneys’ fees, that being the extent of her claim against C.’s estate after her remittitur, and to no more; and her rights in this respect were not enlarged by the existence of the former decree awarding her a dividend of $1,200, such decrees being interlocutory and subject to the control of the court till the winding up of