Central Trust Co. v. Denver & R. G. R.

219 F. 110, 135 C.C.A. 12, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1640
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedDecember 7, 1914
DocketNos. 4078, 4079
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 219 F. 110 (Central Trust Co. v. Denver & R. G. R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Central Trust Co. v. Denver & R. G. R., 219 F. 110, 135 C.C.A. 12, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1640 (8th Cir. 1914).

Opinion

SMITH, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). This case has been submitted upon the correctness of the ruling on the motions to dismiss and the refusal to pass upon the application for a temporary injunction with an elaboration and care that is to be approved. It has been examined with great care, but it cannot be expected that this court will in an opinion review all the hundreds of authorities cited.'

The motions to dismiss were filed under rule 29 (188 Fed. xix, 109 C. C. A. xix) of those in force February 1, 1913, and have the force and effect of demurrers. In the consideration of such motions the court cannot consider affidavits filed by defendants on disputed questions of fact. 'Phis, additional difficulty is met with at the outset that, while many affidavits were introduced and are in the record offered by both the complainant and defendants, they were offered on the application for a temporary injunction and not on the motion to dismiss.

Inasmuch as it seems desirable that the court first pass on the motions to dismiss, the court, in considering them, can only consider the third amended and supplemental bill, including, however, the exhibits incorporated therein and such additional matters as are conceded by the complainant.

¡1] No allegations were made as the basis of reformation of the mortgage (see 27 Cyc. 1093), and no specific prayer or argument therefor has been made. The question, then, is whether, under the allegations of the petition, the plaintiff had a mortgage on the stock in the Junction Company owned by the New Midland Company or could maintain this action without such mortgage. In its argument the complainant says:

“Like tke deed from Mr. Oleott to the Midland Company this mortgage did not expressly describe the Junction stock nor any corporate stock whatever.”

This requires a critical examination of the mortgage to see what, if any, language therein includes the stock. The mortgage provides that:

“Whereas, the railway company has, by virtue and in pursuance of the authority granted it by the laws of the state of Colorado and its certificate of incorporation, purchased and acquired and now owns, holds, maintains and operates the lines of railroad formerly held, owned, maintained and operated by the Colorado Midland Railroad Company.”

And later provides that :

“Whereas, the railway company, in the exercise of the powers in that behalf possessed by it under the laws of the state of Colorado, and its certificate [114]*114of incorporation, and for the purpose of paying and discharging its obligations and indebtedness created and incurred in the purchase of the said property of said the Colorado Midland Railroad Company, and of paying and discharging other obligations and indebtedness created by it, and in order to provide for the payment, funding, exchanging, and retiring of the said mortgage bonds issued by said the Aspen Short Line Railway Company, and to provide for the purchase of the railroad and railroad property of said the Busk Tunnel Railway Company, in case it shall be deemed advisable and proper to make such purchase, and for its other lawful corporate purposes, and in accordance with resolutions duly adopted by its stockholders and by its board of directors at meetings of said stockholders and of said board of directors, duly and regularly called and held, has determined to make and issue its first mortgage gold ‘bonds' to the aggregate amount of ten million dollars ($10,000,000),” and “hath granted, bargained, sold, aliened, remised, released, conveyed and cpnfirmed, and by these presents doth grant, bargain, sell, alien, remise, release, convey and confirm unto the trustee, party of the second part, and to its successor or successors, in the trust herein, all the railways,- railway property and franchises of the railway company, party of the first part, of every kind and nature, whether now owned or hereafter to be acquired, and however owned, held or enjoyed, and more particularly described as follows: The railway and lines of telegraph formerly owned by the Colorado Midland Railroad Company, now owned by the railway company, party of the first part * * * All the property, right, title and interest of the railway company in and to the following railroads and railroad properties leased by the railway company: * * * (3) The railroad of the Rio Grande Junction Railway Company, a corporation of the state of Colorado, extending from a connection with the said road of said the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company at or near the mouth of Rifle creek aforesaid, in a southwesterly direction to a connection with the said road of said the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company on the east line of the northwest quarter of section twenty-three (23), township one (1) south, range one (1) west of the Ute meridian, county of Mesa, state of Colorado, being about sixty-two and eight hundredths (62.08) miles in length, more or less. * * * Also all corporate franchises of every nature whatsoever, relating to said lines of railroad and telegraph, owned or leased by the railway company as aforesaid, together with all and singular the income, endowment, advantages, tenements, hereditaments and appurtenances to said lines of railway and telegraph belonging or in any wise appertaining, and the reversion and reversions, remainder and remainders, tolls, incomes, rents, profits and issues thereof, and also all the estate, right, title, interest, property, possession, claim and demand whatsoever, as well in law as in equity, present or prospective, of the railway company, in and to the said lines of railway and telegraph above described and owned or leased by the railway company, and every part of the same and every parcel thereof, with the appurtenances.”

It is apparent that the Old Midland Company and the New both held at least two valuable claims in the Junction property: First, the stock interest for 7,371% shares; and, second, a lease jointly with the Denver Company of its visible property. In the foreclosure proceeding of the Old Midland of 1897 the master’s deed to Frederick P. Olcott transferred all the property held under the receivership. This was on the 8th day of September, 1897. In this deed was the following description:

“Stock of the Rio Grande Junction Railway Company, seven thousand three hundred seventy-one and one-half (7,371%) shares, par value one hundred dollars ($100.00) per share.”

There was also included in this deed the Busk Tunnel Railway Company property. When Olcott came to deed the property -over to the New Midland Company there was omitted both the stock in the June[115]*115tion Company and the Busk Tunnel Railway, and both were omitted from the trust deed to the complainant, but there was specifically carried therein the leasehold interest in the Junction Railway.

The primary question is whether the trust deed accurately and specifically described the property here chiefly in question, viz., the stock in the Junction Company. Thompson on Corporations (2d Ed.) par. 2571. It is claimed that the whole transaction gave the Old Midland Company an equitable interest in the Junction Company and its property. As sustaining this, the appellant cites the unpublished opinion of the presiding judge of this court in the case of Ames et al. v. Union Pacific Railway Co. et al.; National Waterworks Co. v. Kansas City (C. C.) 78 Fed. 428; Guaranty Trust Co. v. Atlantic Coast Electric R. Co. (C. C.) 132 Fed. 68; Id., 138 Fed. 517, 71 C. C. A.

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Related

Vallery v. Denver & R. G. R.
236 F. 176 (Eighth Circuit, 1916)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
219 F. 110, 135 C.C.A. 12, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1640, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/central-trust-co-v-denver-r-g-r-ca8-1914.