Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. Chicago & A. Ry. Co.

27 F. 146, 1886 U.S. App. LEXIS 2051
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Indiana
DecidedApril 8, 1886
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 27 F. 146 (Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. Chicago & A. Ry. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. Chicago & A. Ry. Co., 27 F. 146, 1886 U.S. App. LEXIS 2051 (circtdin 1886).

Opinion

Gresham, J.

The Chicago & Atlantic Bailway Company, on the thirteenth of June, 1881, by its deed of trust, conveyed to the Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company, a New York corporation, and Conrad Baker, a resident and citizen of Indiana, its line of railway extending from Marion, Ohio, to Chicago, together with all other property of every character which it then owned or might thereafter acquire, to secure an issue of 6,500 bonds of $1,000 each, payable on November 1, 1920, with interest at 6 per cent, per annum, payable semi-annually on the first days of May and November. On the fifteenth day of September, 1883, the railway company, by a second trust deed, conveyed the same property to the Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company and George J. Bippus, a citizen of Indiana, to secure an additional issue of 5,000 bonds of $1,000 each, payable on the first day of August, 1923, with interest at the rate of 6 por cent, per annum, payable semi-annually on the first days of February and August. This suit is brought by the Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company against the Chicago & Atlantic Bailway Company and George J. Bippus, the co-trustee in the second mortgage; Conrad Baker, the co-trustee in the first mortgage, being dead.

[148]*148Section 2988 of the Eevised Statutes of Indiana, which was in force when the trust deeds were executed, provides that “it shall be unlawful for any person, association, or corporation to nominate or appoint any person a trustee in any deed, mortgage, or other instrument in writing, (except wills,) for any purpose whatever, who shall not be at the time a bona fide resident of the state of Indiana; and it shall be unlawful for any person who is not a bona fide resident of the state to act as such trustee. And if any person, after his appointment as such trustee, shall remove from the state, then his rights, powers, and duties as such trustee shall cease, and the proper court shall appoint his successor, pursuant to the act to which this is supplemental. ”

It is urged that inasmuch as the Farmers’.Loan & Trust Company is a New York corporation it was not capable, under this statute, of acting as trustee in the trust deed or mortgage, and that it cannot, therefore, maintain this suit. The Chicago & Atlantic Company conveyed its property in trust to secure its bonds, and it would not, perhaps, as between itself and the bondholders, be permitted to urge this objection against the validity of its own solemn act. Gov. Baker, the co-trustee, who died before the suit was brought, and whose successor in the trust has not been appointed, was a resident,of Indiana when the trust deed was executed. This satisfied the requirements of the Indiana statute. No court would be expected to hold that the trust deed was void because one of the trustees was not a resident of Indiana. If it be true that the Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company was not capable of acting as trustee to the extent of taking title to so much of the mortgaged property as was situated within the state, or that its designation as trustee was to that extent inoperative and void, nevertheless the trust deed was valid when executed, and a trust is never permitted to fail for want of a trustee. The trust property was conveyed as an entirety to secure the payment of the bonds and coupons, and it is not claimed that the Farmers’ Loan dr Trust Company was incapable of acting as trustee so far as the trust embraced property within the states of Ohio and Illinois. Suits between the same parties, asking the same relief, commonly called “ancillary” suits, may be, and presumably have been, instituted in the circuit court of the United States for the Northern district of Ohio and the Northern district of Illinois, and the court in either of those jurisdictions would have authority to decree a sale of the mortgaged property as an entirety. Muller v. Dows, 94 U. S. 444.

If, under such circumstances, a court of equity has authority to allow the requesting coupon-holders to be made co-complainants with the Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company, it would be expected to exercise it instead of dismissing the bill. The facts of this case would perhaps justify the exercise of that authority. But if the Chicago & Atlantic Company be not estopped from denying that the Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company was capable of acting as trustee, and if the court is not [149]*149authorized to allow the coupon-holders, at whose request the suit was brought, to be substituted as complainants or made co-complainants with the Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company, the bill must be dismissed, unless the statute relied on is invalid.

It will be observed that this statute does not prohibit foreign corporations from doing business in this state. Obviously that was not the design of the legislature. It is a statute which denies to residents of other states the right to take and hold in trust, otherwise than by last will and testament, real and personal property in Indiana. The right is asserted to deny to persons, associations, or corporations, within or without the state, power to convey to any person in trust, not a resident of Indiana, real or personal property within the state. This is a plain discrimination against the residents of other states. If Indiana may disqualify a resident of another state from acting as trustee in a trust deed or mortgage which conveys real or personal property as security for a debt due to himself alone, or for debts due himself and other creditors, it would seem that the state might prohibit citizens of other states from holding property within the state, and to that extent from doing business within the state. No state can do the latter. A person may, and frequently does, acquire a property interest by a conveyance to him in trust. A citizen of the United States cannot be denied the right to take and hold absolutely real or personal property in any state of the Union, nor can he be denied the right to accept the conveyance of such property in trust for his sole benefit, or for the benefit of himself and others. This right is incident to national citizenship.

Section 2 of article 4 of the constitution ef the United States declares that “the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.” “Attempt will not be made,” say the supreme court of the United Slates in Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, “to define the words ‘privileges and immunities,’ or to specify the rights which they are intended to secure and protect, beyond what may be necessary to the decision of the case before the court. Beyond doubt, those words are words of vej'y comprehensive meaning; but it will be sufficient to say that the clause plainly and unmistakably secures and protects the right of a citizen of one state to pass into any other state of the Union for the purpose of engaging in lawful commerce, trade, or business, without molestation; to acquire personal property; io take and hold real exude. * * *”

But it may be said that the word “person,” as used in the statute, includes artificial as well as natural persons, and that the statute is capable of enforcement as against corporations only. A careful reading of the act will show that it is not capable of such construction. The latter clause of the section says: “If any person, after his appointment as such trustee, shall remove from the state, his right as trustee shall cease.” A domestic corporation cannot remove from [150]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
27 F. 146, 1886 U.S. App. LEXIS 2051, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farmers-loan-trust-co-v-chicago-a-ry-co-circtdin-1886.