R. Frank Williams Co. v. United States Baking Co.

McSherry, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. A bill of complaint was filed on the equity side of the Circuit Court for Wicomico County on July the twenty-second, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, by the appellees against the appellant, praying for the appointment of receivers to take possession of the appellant’s assets and property. The appellant is a body corporate duly incorporated under the general laws of Maryland pertaining to the creation and formation of corporations. On the day the bill was filed an order was signed appointing receivers as prayed.

In disposing of the only question which we are required to decide or can determine as the record stands, it is unnecessary to make reference to the allegations of the bill. On the twenty-eighth of July the appellant filed in the Court below a motion to dismiss the bill and to rescind the order appointing the receivers ; but this motion was overruled on August the second. On the fourth of August what purports to be an answer of the defendant corporation signed by two solicitors, but not under the seal of the corporation, was filed ; and on the same day an appeal was taken by the defendant from the order of July the twenty-second appointing the receivers, and from the order of August the second overruling the motion to dismiss the bill and to rescind the appointment of the receivers. On the seventh of August another paper signed by three persons professing to be a majority of the directors of the defendant corporation was filed, wherein all ⁴⁷⁷ the allegations of the bill are admitted and whereby it is claimed that the appeal of August the fourth was taken without the authority of the company.

This paper is not under the corporate seal. A motion has been made in this Court to dismiss the two appeals docketed pursuant to the prayer of appeal dated August the fourth. Various reasons have been assigned in support of this motion, but as one of them is decisive and must prevail, it alone will be considered. This is the third reason, and it asks that the two appeals shall be dismissed, “ because the appellant did not file any answer at all before entering an order for appeal.” From the order denying the motion of July the twenty-second, which motion asked that the bill be dismissed and that the appointment of the receivers be rescinded, standing alone, no appeal will lie.

This precise proposition has been decided in Hull v. Caughy, 66 Md. 104 . The order overruling this motion is in no sense a final decree, nor is it an order in the nature of a final decree; and though an appeal is allowed from an order appointing a receiver, no appeal is provided by statute, from an order refusing to rescind the appointment, or refusing to discharge the receiver. Code, Art. 5, sec. 21. As observed in Hull v. Caughy , there are .cases reported where upon appeals taken and entertained from orders appointing receivers or from other like orders from which an appeal is especially provided for by statute, the propriety of continuing or of discharging the receiver has been