Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. Green Bay & Minnesota R.

6 F. 100
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Wisconsin
DecidedJanuary 15, 1881
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 6 F. 100 (Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. Green Bay & Minnesota R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Wisconsin 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. Green Bay & Minnesota R., 6 F. 100 (circtedwi 1881).

Opinion

Dyer, D. J.

On the twenty-third day of January, 1878, the complainant in the above-entitled cause, as trustee for bondholders, filed a bill in this court to foreclose two mortgages on the railroad and property of the defendant company, [102]*102given to secure the payment of certain issues of bonds, amounting in the aggregate to $5,300,000. On the third day of April, 1879, a decree of foreclosure and sale of the mortgaged property was entered. On the tenth day of January, 1881, and but a few days before the sale under the decree of foreclosure was advertised to take place, Mary M. Kelly, a holder of bonds secured by one of the mortgages, filed a petition in said cause praying leave to file a bill of review for certain alleged errors and irregularities in the foreclosure proceedings; and the question has been raised by demurrer to the petition, and argued and submitted, whether or not leave to file such a bill should be granted. The determination of petitioner’s right to file a bill of review involves, therefore, a consideration of the contents of the petition in connection with such parts of the record in the foreclosure case as are brought into controversy by the allegations of the petition.

As appears by the foreclosure decree, the original issue of bonds secured by the first mortgage was $3,200,000, and the issue of bonds secured by the second mortgage was $2,100,-000.

The petitioner alleges herself to be the holder of second mortgage bonds amounting' to $14,320, besides interest. The decree adjudges that “of the said second mortgage bonds the sum of $850,260 was issued in exchange for interest coupons, due upon said first mortgage bonds, and is, with the interest due thereon, a lien under the said first mortgage, and constitutes a part of the debt secured thereby;” and by the decree it is further adjudged and decreed “that the entire amount of bonds secured by the said first mortgage is the sum of $4,050,260, being the amount of first mortgage bonds of $3,200,000, * * * and the said amount of $850,260 of second mortgage bonds issued as security for interest due on said first mortgage bonds. * * * That the entire amount of bonds outstanding and unpaid, secured by the said second mortgage, * * * is the sum of $2,100,000, of which amount the sum of $850,260 was issued to secure past-due interest coupons on said first mortgage.”

Further provisions of the decree important to notice are, [103]*103that any of the bondholders may become purchasers of the mortgaged property at the foreclosure sale; that the sum of $25,000 shall bo paid in cash at the time of sale, and that the purchaser shall comply with his bid on the day of the sale; that “after the payment to the marshal of the sum of $25,000 in cash, of the sum bid by the purchaser at said sale, the marshal may receive from said purchaser for the balance of the sum bid at such sale, in lieu of cash, any of the outstanding and unpaid bonds or coupons secured by the said first mortgage, at such percentage of the face value thereof as this court shall at the approval of said sale authorize and direct.” Also, “that so much of the purchase money at said sale as shall be necessary to pay the costs of this suit as taxed, and the costs and expenses of said sale, and the amount hereby adjudged to be due to the said complainant and its solicitors, shall be paid in cash, and that the remainder of said purchase money may bo paid in cash or in said first mortgage bonds, or such of said second mortgage bonds as are by this decree held to be secured by said first mortgage in the proportion aforesaid.”

1. It is claimed by the petitioner that, in various particulars set forth in her petition, error and ambiguity are apparent in the decree; and one of the allegations upon which this claim is founded is that “if appears on the face of the decree that a cash bid of $25,000 is not sufficient to make valid and effectual the terms of the decree, in this: that the said decree provides on its face that §850,260 of the second mortgage bonds given in exchange for first mortgage coupons, with the interest thereon, shall be a first lien and charge upon all the property, real and personal, by said first mortgage conveyed, and to satisfy said $850,260 as a first lien, a sum of over $25,000 in money should and ought to be directed to be paid.” This objection to the decree is founded upon a misapprehension of its scope and moaning. The decree does not give to the $850,260 a rank in advance of the first mortgage bonds. It declares that second mortgage bonds of that amount were issued in exchange for interest coupons due upon the first mortgage bonds, and are, with interest, a lien under the first mortgage, and entitled to be proved under that mortgage and [104]*104constitute a part of the debt secured thereby. Again, in another part of the decree, it is declared that “the sum of $850,260 was issued to secure past-due interest coupons on said first mortgage, and is secured by said first mortgage as aforesaid;” and, as we have already seen, it is further provided that the purchase money on the bid “may be paid in cash or in said first mortgage bonds, or such of said second mortgage bonds as are by this decree held to be secured by said first mortgage.” It is clear, therefore, that the second mortgage bonds to the amount of $850,260 are simply placed on the same footing as the first mortgage bonds — not as having a preference over the latter, but as being equally secured under the first mortgage with the first mortgage bonds. There was, therefore, no greater or other reason why the decree should provide for a cash payment on the bid of a purchaser sufficient to cover the $850,260, than there was for a cash payment adequate to cover the entire amount of the first mortgage bonds.

2. Th^ mortgages provided that in case of default in payment of either the principal or interest due on the bonds secured thereby, and on written request of the holders .of a specified proportion of the bonds, the trustee might sell the mortgaged property; and it was therein further provided that “the amount of the bid or purchase money of said sale may be paid and satisfied in whole or in part by the outstanding mortgage bonds, or any of them, issued hereunder, and the same shall be taken and received in whole or in part payment and satisfaction by the party of the second part, its successor, or successors, according to their value, to be ascertained and determined by the net amount arising from such sale as compared with the amount of outstanding bonds issued hereunder as aforesaid.”

The decree, as we have before observed, provides that after payment of $25,000 in cash of the sum bid at the sale under the decree, the purchaser may pay the balance of his bid in outstanding bonds and coupons, secured by the first mortgage, “at such percentage of the face value thereof as this court shall, at the approval of said sale, authorize and direct.”

Now, it is alleged in the petition that the decree is erro-[105]*105neons in that it does not observe or follow the terms of the mortgages as to the receipt of bonds as part of the purchase price for the property sold. The sale authorized in the mortgages was une to be made in certain contingencies by the trustee. It was a sale to be made in accordance with the stipulations of the parties.

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Bluebook (online)
6 F. 100, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farmers-loan-trust-co-v-green-bay-minnesota-r-circtedwi-1881.