In re United States Rolling Stock Co.

55 How. Pr. 286
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1878
StatusPublished

This text of 55 How. Pr. 286 (In re United States Rolling Stock Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re United States Rolling Stock Co., 55 How. Pr. 286 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1878).

Opinion

Daniels, J.

The applications made in this proceeding are three in number. The first is for the payment of $280,899.79, due upon certificates of the receiver of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway Company for the use of rolling stock leased to him by the United States Bolling Stock Company, and used upon the railway. The second is for the payment of one-quarter of one per cent a mile for the use of cars, other than passenger and baggage cars, used in the transaction of - the business of the railway while running upon the Erie railway, and in the aggregate amounting to the sum of $12,012.93. And the third is for an injunction restraining the receiver from paying interest on the bonds secured by a mortgage on that part of the railway situated in the state of Ohio.

Upon the threshold of the presentation of these applications, the objection was taken that they should be remitted unconsidered and undecided to the action of the courts of the state of Ohio. That was predicated upon the circumstance that the railway whose earnings were to be affected was chiefly situated in that state, and for that reason the proceedings which had been taken for its foreclosure and sale had been mainly carried on there; and it may possibly be that the jiu’isdiction of that court might have been so» comprehensively involved as to have been properly attended with that result (Muller agt. Dows, 94 U. S. Sup. Ct. Repts., 414). In the case referred to one suit alone was prosecuted for the [288]*288sale of the entire line of road included in the mortgage, but in the proceedings taken for the foreclosure of the mortgage upon this line of railway that was not the fact. While the railway was principally situated in the state of Ohio, it at the same time also passed through the state of Pennsylvania, and so much of the state of New York as intervened between the line of the state and the village of Salamanca. The mortgage which it was designed to foreclose was an incumbrance on this entire property. And in taking the proceedings to secure that end, it appears to have been assumed that it could only be properly and legally done by means of three different actions simultaneously carried on in the courts of each of the three states. The papers in the actions prosecuted in the courts of Pennsylvania and New York do not exhibit it to have been the design that these actions should be merely auxiliary, or subsidiary, to that maintained in the courts of the state of Ohio. The suit pending in this state, on the contrary, appears to have been instituted in the usual and ordinary form for the foreclosure of a mortgage given upon property situated within its limits. The complaint is in the form properly adapted to that object, and the substantial relief applied for is the sale of the mortgaged property under and in conformity to the judgment of this court. What has been invoked by it has been simply the enforcement of the laws of this state, so far as they may he found applicable to its subject-matter; and that is, certainly, a duty which ho authority would warrant the remission of to the courts of a sister state. If the action had been one for the enforcement of, the laws of the state of Ohio concerning rights to real property situated there, a different disposition of the point might become necessary. Oomity wonld then probably require that the laws of that state should he executed by means of its own tribunals. But the action pending in this court embodies neither of those elements. It has been brought to affect property situated within this state, through the application of [289]*289legal proceedings provided by its own laws, and requiring the aid of one of its own tribunals. And the fact that similar orders have been made in the course of its prosecution to those entered in the court of the state of Ohio does not conflict with, but rather tends to confirm this position. They may have been, in terms, entered more broadly than the final object in view could have required. But that did not change their nature, which evidently was the assimilation of the proceedings pa/ri passu in all three of the courts. They were entered by consent, and strict accuracy of verbiage was not required to complete the purposes of the parties. All that has been done confirms but one view, and that is that the proceedings in each of the states were independent, so far as they related to the property within its limits, but at the same time they were required to be uniform, because of the uniformity of the interests to which they related. The objection made to the consideration of these applications must, therefore, be overruled. But in making that determination, it may be proper to disclaim the existence of any intention to entrench upon or conflict with the orders or decisions found to be within the province of the court of the state of Ohio. The first or Ohio mortgage, as it has been designated, is wholly upon so much of the railway company’s property as is situated within the bounds of that state. And the same observation is equally as accurate concerning so much of the mortgage under foreclosure as includes that property. To that extent the jurisdiction of that court, as the actions have been commenced and presented, must be held to be exclusive. But with the greatest respect for its proceedings, ability and authority, that can in no proper sense be held to be sufficient to preclude the consideration of the merits of these several applications.

They proceed essentially upon contracts made between the Bolling Stock Company, a corporation existing under the laws of this state, and the receiver, who has received his appointment under the several orders of the courts of the three states. The making and existence of these contracts have [290]*290been conceded in the case; and while then- terms are, to a certain extent, presented for construction, they themselves have not been made the subject of any denial. The point of time to which the first agreement related has become involved in dispute, but the adjustment of that dispute is not required for the disposition of the controversy between the parties. The contract itself was made dependent for its validity upon the concurring sanction of the courts of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Hew York, and that it in the same terms received. It may have been unreasonable and exorbitant in the compensation provided for the use of the cars; but there is nothing whatever in these proceedings showing that to have been the case, and if there had been, that could not prevent its-observance as long as the receiver took no measures to secure its revocation, or that of the orders by which it was in plain terms sanctioned and approved. He required the cars leased for the transaction of the business of the railway committed to his custody, and the terms submitted to seem to have been the most favorable under which they could at the time be procured; and, after obtaining and using them in that manner, it is entirely too late to advance the objection that the agreement made was more liberal than it should have been in the way of its provisions for remuneration. The presumption upon this subject is in favor of the justice of the claim made, as the facts are now presented, and that will so far sustain the legality of the demand here made for payment. The amount shown to have accrued, and which has not been paid under the contract, is the sum of $280,879.79. But that fact, of itself, does not entitle the Bolling Stock Company to a present direction for its payment. That was not the nature of the obligation which the contract placed upon the receiver.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
55 How. Pr. 286, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-united-states-rolling-stock-co-nysupct-1878.