Citation Numbers: 10 Pa. Super. 342
Judges: Beaver, Beeber, Orlady, Porter, Rice
Filed Date: 5/18/1899
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 2/18/2022
Opinion by
An important question of practice is raised by the preliminary motion to quash this appeal. Appellant failed to comply with the equity rules of the Supreme Court by filing “ in the court below, with his notice of appeal, a brief statement of the errors he alleges to have been made by the order or decree appealed from or the findings on which it rests: ” 159 Pa. xxviii. His reply is that he filed in this court the specifications of error required by our own rules and that, having complied with our rule in this regard, he has discharged his full duty, It is to be remarked, however, that the equity rules published by the Supreme Court are prescribed under authority of the statute and have the force of law. They govern in all equity proceedings in any of the courts of the commonwealth, and are to be complied with in this court as fully as in the Supreme Court. As was said in Barlott v. Forney, 187 Pa. 301, “ They are not abrogated by the subsequent Act of May 19,1897, P. L. 67. It is true that act repeals all prior acts intended to be changed or supplied by it, so that, as is provided in section 22, it ‘ shall furnish a complete and exclusive system in itself on all appeals,’ but it was not thereby intended to interfere with the rules of equity practice,
In the hearing of the case before the referee, the plaintiff objected to the defendants’ offer of the constitution and bylaws of the association, under which they conducted business, and the minutes from the date of the association. The objection was overruled and an exception allowed to the plaintiff and duly noted, but no exception to this ruling was filed after the report of the referee was made, in accordance with the requirements of the 69th rule of the Supreme Court rules of equity practice. We cannot, therefore, consider the first specification of error for the reason that the question involved in it was not raised in the court below. The same is true as to the second, third and fifth specifications.
The question of fact involved in the fourth specification was raised in the court below by a distinct exception to the finding of the referee and is, therefore, properly before us; but, inasmuch as the number of shares in the co-operative association at the date of the assignment of H. W. Swoope to Myton can only be of practical importance, in case it can be held that Swoope’s assignment worked a dissolution of the firm or association as among the partners or shareholders themselves, so that the entire assets of the association must be marshaled and distributed; and, inasmuch as we hold for reasons which will be presently stated that the assignment of Myton was equivalent to a withdrawal from the association and did not thereby work its dissolution, so far as the members thereof were concerned, it is not necessary for us to consider whether the finding of the court in this respect is correct or not, for the reason that the value of Myton’s shares, the number of which is undisputed, must be determined in the way pointed out by the by-laws of the association, and not by a division of all of its assets among the shareholders in proportion to the number held by each respectively.
The surrender value of shares of stock, as found by the referee at the date of the assignment, was thirteen dollars per share, and this was the amount allowed by the court below in deter mining the interest of the plaintiff. We cannot see that any wrong was done him by the court’s computation and the decree based thereon.
Decree affirmed and appeal dismissed.