Atlanta & F. R. v. Western Ry. Co. of Alabama

50 F. 790, 1 C.C.A. 676, 1892 U.S. App. LEXIS 1281
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJune 6, 1892
DocketNo. 39
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 50 F. 790 (Atlanta & F. R. v. Western Ry. Co. of Alabama) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Atlanta & F. R. v. Western Ry. Co. of Alabama, 50 F. 790, 1 C.C.A. 676, 1892 U.S. App. LEXIS 1281 (5th Cir. 1892).

Opinion

- McCormick:, Circuit Judge.

The appellees, corporations, respectively, of the states of Alabama, Tennessee, and New Jersey, brought this suit in thé United States circuit court for the southern district of Georgia against the appellant railroad, a Georgia corporation, and the Central Trust Company of New York, a New York corporation, on three separate simple contract debts not secured by a lien or mortgage, or put in judgment at law, held by the appellees, respectively. They charged that the appellant railroad was insolvent, and was about to put out an issue of second mortgage bonds for purposes and on a scheme that would work an injury to them as unsecured creditors, and they asked for the appointment of a receiver and for an injunction. The bill was presented to one of the judges of the circuit court for the southern district of Georgia, who, after notice to the parties and hearing the appellant’s plea to the jurisdiction of the court, and proof offered, held that the court had jurisdiction, and appointed a receiver, and granted a preliminary injunction as prayed for in the bill, from which order this appeal is taken, under section 7 of the act creating this court. The bill alleges that the Atlanta & Florida Railroad Company was, at the time the bill was presented, a resident of the southern district of Georgia, and was a corpo[791]*791ration duly chartered under tho laws of Georgia. The appellant pleaded that it was a resident of the northern district of Georgia, and that it was not a resident of the southern district of Georgia; that it was “a corporation created under the laws of Georgia, and a resident of the county of Fulton, state of Georgia, by reason of the fact that its principal place of business established by its charter is in said Fulton county, which said county is not within the jurisdiction of the circuit court of tho United States for tho southern district of Georgia.”

The appellant filed with its petition for appeal the following assignments of errors:

“(1) That the court erred in holding the plea to tho jurisdiction filed by this defendant insufficient, and in overruling the same; (2) that the court erred in holding that the showing made by this defendant against the granting of tho injunction was insufficient; (3) that the court erred in holding, upon tho facts presented, that the injunction should be granted as prayed for. ”

Tho appellant has filed in this court additional assignments of errors, as follows:

“(1) The plea to the jurisdiction set forth on pages 30 and 31 of the transcript should have been sustained because of the residence of the appellant the Atlanta & Florida llailroad Company in the northern district of Georgia. (2) The court cannot entertain jurisdiction of a suit in equity to subject the properly of the defendant company, [appellant,] in advance of recovery of a judgment at law, to tho payment of a simple contract debt, when said debt is not secured by a lien or mortgage, because, under the constitution, the defendant is entitled to a trial by jury. (3) Tho court erred in granting an injunction to a simple, contract creditor without lien or mortgage, and thereby prior to judgment interfering with the possession of the property of the debtor.”

In his oral argument counsel for appellani suggests that the errors assigned in this court are only a clearer statement of the errors embraced in the assignment of errors attached to the petition for appeal, and ap-pellees’ counsel lay no stress on the matter of the additional assignment of errors filed here. We will therefore treat this additional assignment as a clearer expression of the assignment of errors filed in the court below, and consider the errors assigned as if they had been filed in due time in the circuit court.

It is settled by the decisions of the United. States supreme court that the appellant, being a corporation created under the laws of Georgia, is, from its creation through tho whole period of its existence, a citizen of that state; that it is a person within the meaning of the law regulating the institution and conduct of suits, and that it cannot emigrate from the state of its creation; and, being found in Georgia, it may well be taken to he a resident of that state. But whether, like the state government, it resides at every point within the boundaries of the state, or its residence is limited to the places where it does business, or to the place designated in its charter as its principal place of lousiness, must depend on the law, general or particular, giving and governing its life; and, if its residence is not coextensive with the state, an issue of fact [792]*792arises which requires proof. The record in this case does not disclose what proof was introduced by complainants, (appellees.) It says:

“Upon the close of testimony for the complainants introduced in the above-stated case, on the hearing of application for appointment of a receiver, and thfe granting of injunction in accordance with the prayers of the bill, the defendant the Atlanta & Florida Railroad Company introduced in evidence the original charter of the Atlanta & Hawkinsville Railroad Company, of date the 9th of July, 1886, signed by the Hon. Henry D. McDaniel, then governor of the state of Georgia, and attested by N. C. Barnett, secretary of state, by which the principal place of business of said company was fixed at city of Atlanta, in the county of Fulton, in said state. Said defendant also called the attention of the court to the act of the general assembly of 1886, found on page 102 of the Georgia Laws of that year, and the act of the general assembly of the state of Georgia of the year 1887, found on page 238 of the Georgia Laws of that year, by which the name of the Atlanta & Hawkinsville Railroad Company was changed to that of the Atlanta & Florida Railroad Company. Upon introducing this testimony the said defendant closed. The court thereupon ruled that it did have jurisdiction of the above-stated bill, and the application for the appointment of a receiver, and the granting of injunction, and did have the jurisdiction to appoint a receiver and grant an injunction, which it then and there did by formal order.”

It, however, sufficiently appears from the printed briefs and oral argument of counsel that the appellant railroad is in operation in the southern district of Georgia, and that while Atlanta, which is named in its charter as its principal place of business, is in the northern district, the principal part of its completed and projected road is in the southern district. We have not access to the organic and statute law of the various states, and though we may be charged with judicial knowledge of them, and they do not have to be proved as a fact, it is proper, if not necessary, that counsel should embody in their printed briefs, or append thereto, exact copies of the provisions of the state laws on which they rely, or to which they refer in argument. We find it stated in the brief of appellant’s counsel that Code Ga. § 8402, provides that “ all civil cases in law shall be tried in the county wherein the defendant resides,” and that section 4183 provides that “all bills shall be filed in the county where (?) the residence of one of the defendants against whom a substantial relief is prayed,” and that “the constitution of Georgia in section 16, par. 8, is in the same language as contained in the foregoing section 4183. Paragraph 6, same section of the constitution of Georgia, is the same as contained in section of Code 3402.” From the same brief we quote that Code Ga. §3406, provides:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
50 F. 790, 1 C.C.A. 676, 1892 U.S. App. LEXIS 1281, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/atlanta-f-r-v-western-ry-co-of-alabama-ca5-1892.