City of Winfield v. Wichita Natural Gas Co.

267 F. 47, 1920 U.S. App. LEXIS 2133
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedAugust 17, 1920
DocketNo. 5461
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 267 F. 47 (City of Winfield v. Wichita Natural Gas Co.) 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
City of Winfield v. Wichita Natural Gas Co., 267 F. 47, 1920 U.S. App. LEXIS 2133 (8th Cir. 1920).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above).

[1, 2] Counsel first argue that dhe order dissolving the injunction should be reversed for want of jurisdiction of the District Court, because there was no separable controversy between the city and the Wichita Company, a corporation of Delaware, while the other defendant was a corporation of Kansas, a corporation of the same state as was the plaintiff.

“Separate and distinct causes of action disclosed by tbe record in a single suit, upon either of which a separate suit could have been maintained, and the determination of neither of which is essential to the disposition of the other, constitute separable controversies, within the meaning of the acts of Congress.”
“In a determination of the jurisdiction of the national courts, and the right to remove causes of action to them, indispensable parties only should be considered, because all other parties may be dismissed and disregarded, if their presence would oust or restrict the jurisdiction or the right.”

These rulés were stated and the authorities sustaining them were cited many years ago by this court. Boatmen’s Bank v. Fritzlen, 135 Fed. 650, 658, 663, 68 C. C. A. 288, 296, 301. The opinion and decision in that case was twice challenged and affirmed in the Supreme Court. Fritzlen v. Boatmen’s Bank, 198 U. S. 586, 25 Sup. Ct. 803, 49 L. Ed. 1174; Fritzlen v. Boatmen’s Bank, 212 U. S. 364, 371, 29 Sup. Ct. 366, 53 L. Ed. 551. The later decisions of .the national courts have not disturbed these rules. Texas Co. v. Central Fuel Co., 194 Fed. 1, 10, 114 C. C. A. 21, 31.

[3] Neither of the defendants is bound in morals or in law to supply natural gas to the city of Winfield for 30 cents per 1000 cubic feet, or for any other price, unless it has agreed with that city so to do. The only cause of action the complaint in this'case presents against the Winfield Company is that by its purchase, receipt, and acceptance in June, 1909, of the conveyance to it of the property of the old Winfield Gas Company, and of its rights and privileges under the ordinance contract, and by its subsequent use .’thereof, it assumed the obligations of that company under the ordinance contract to supply natural gas to the city and its inhabitants at the 30-cent rate. If the complaint discloses any controversy between the Winfield Natural Gas Company and the city, it relates to and involves this contract of assumption, and to the trial and determination of that issue the Wichita Company is neither an indispensable, necessary, nor proper party.

[4] There is no averment in the complaint that the Wichita Company ever made any direct agreement with the city, or with any of its inhabitants, to sell, deliver, furnish, or supply to it, or any of them, natural gas at 30 cents per 1000 cubic feet, or at any other price, oi that the city or its inhabitants ever gave to that company any franchise, consideration, <jr grant for any such agreement. The complaint contains averments, however, that the Wichita Company assumed the obligation of Pattison and his successors in interest in the ordinance contract so.to do: First, by supplying gas to the receiver of the old Winfield Company, and through him to the city and its inhabitants, under and pursuant to the terms of the Hackney supply contract, dated [51]*51November 25, 1906; second, by paying, as the principal bondholder and creditor of the old Winfield Company, the purchase price at the sheriff’s sale of that company’s properly to John D. Neely, its president, in June, 1909, causing its officers and agents to incorporate the Winfield Natural Gas Company, causing the title to the property, rights, and privileges of the 'old Winfield Company to be vested in this new corporation immediately after the sheriff’s sale, and taking, holding, and owning the capital stock of that company; third, by using the Winfield Natural Gas Company as its agent to send its gas through the mains and pipes of that company in the city of Winfield, to the city and its inhabitants, in accordance with the terms of the supply contract of November 25, 1906, which was assumed and ratified by the Winfield Natural Gas Company and is in full force and effect; fourth, by the facts that die city and its inhabitants have known of the ordinance contract, of the supply contract, and of the furnishing of gas thereunder, and have made expensive improvements in reliance thereon.

If the Wichita Company has not assumed and agreed by one or more of these acts thus pleaded to perform the original agreement of Patti-son in the ordinance contract to supply natural gas to the city and its inhabitants at not exceeding the 30-ceut rate, it is not bound under the complaint in this action to the city so to do, and the only controversies between the Wichita Company and ihe city are whether or not it has made any of these alleged assumptions. Each of the controversies concerning these assumptions, however, is conditioned by the acts, writings, and sayings of the Wichita Company, and by those alone. The trial and the determination of these controversies cannot adjudge or affect'the issue whether or not, by the Winfield Natural Gas Company’s purchase and use of the property, rights, and privileges of the old Winfield Company it assumed and agreed to perform the conditions of the ordinance contract. It was not and is not, therefore, an indispensable or necessary party to the trial and adjudication of the controversies between the city and the Wichita Company.

Those controversies arise from, and their determination is conditioned by, alleged agreements of assumption by the Wichita Company of the obligations of the grantee of the ordinance contract and its successors, distinct and separate from the alleged agreement of assumption thereof by the Winfield Natural Gas Company by its purchase, acceptance, and use of the property and franchises of the old Winfield Company. The causes of action alleged against the Wichita Company, on the one hand, and that averred against the Winfield Natural Gas Company, on the other hand, were separate and distinct, conditioned by separate alleged contracts, upon either of which a separate suit might have been maintained, and the determination of none of the alleged causes of action against one of these corporations was essential to the determination of any of the causes of action against the other. Their controversies with the city were therefore separable, and the court below had jurisdiction of this suit.

[5] The contention of counsel for the city and the authorities cited in support thereof to the effect that these controversies were inseparable, because the two companies were jointly associated together, be[52]*52cause each was interested in the business they were conducting under the supply contract, because under that contract the Winfield Natural Gas Company was the agent of the Wichita Company, because it was controlled by the latter by its ownership of the Winfield stock, and because a joint liability is alleged and a joint injunction is prayed, have received careful attention and meditation; but, in pleading, general averments are always controlled and limited by specific allegations regarding the same subject-matters. Boatmen’s Bank v. Fritzlen, 135 Fed. 650, 659, 68 C. C. A. 288, 297; Moyer v. Ft. Wayne, C. & L. R. Co., 132 Ind. 88, 31 N. E. 567, 568; Reynolds v.

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Bluebook (online)
267 F. 47, 1920 U.S. App. LEXIS 2133, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-winfield-v-wichita-natural-gas-co-ca8-1920.