Opinion
Nos. 11499, 11603.
December 6, 1946. Rehearing Denied January 13, 1947.
Appeals from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Texas; James C. Wilson, Judge.
Action by Seaboard Surety Company against Texasteel Manufacturing Company and others, wherein defendants George W. Armstrong, Sr., and Mary C. Armstrong filed a counterclaim, consolidated with action by same plaintiff against George W. Armstrong, Sr., and others, for declaratory judgments regarding contracts entered into by individual defendants to indemnify plaintiff against loss or damage it might sustain as surety on advancement and performance bonds executed by corporate defendant as principal. From adverse judgments, the defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
James C. Wilson, Jr., Mark McMahon, and William Pannill, all of Fort Worth, Tex., for appellants.
Julian B. Mastin, of Dallas, Tex., William E. Allen, of Fort Worth, Tex., and Lewis M. Stevens, of Philadelphia, Pa., for appellee.
Before SIBLEY, WALLER, and LEE, Circuit Judges.
A declaratory judgment was rendered below on May 8, 1945, from which an appeal was taken. Coercive relief in the form of a judgment for the payment of money based upon the declaratory decree was also entered by the Court, in the same case, on January 12, 1946, from which an appeal was likewise taken. The two appeals, by stipulation, having been argued together, we shall dispose of them together.
We conclude: (1) that the Court below had jurisdiction; (2) that the allegations of the complaint made an appropriate case for a declaratory judgment; (3) that the defendants wholly failed to prove either fraud, duress, or mismanagement by appellee; (4) that the defendants wholly failed to make out a case for any recovery against the appellee; (5) that the individual defendants were primarily liable on the obligation for which recovery was allowed; (6) that the corporate reorganization proceedings in bankruptcy pending in the same court did not prevent the Court below from declaring the rights of the parties and from rendering judgment against the individual defendants; (7) that the granting of a money judgment in the case after the rendition of a declaratory decree was not error; (8) that the judgments of the Court below in both appeals should be, and the same are hereby, affirmed.