Independent School Dist. of Sioux City v. Rew

111 F. 1, 1901 U.S. App. LEXIS 4358
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedSeptember 23, 1901
DocketNo. 1,525
StatusPublished
Cited by37 cases

This text of 111 F. 1 (Independent School Dist. of Sioux City v. Rew) 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
Independent School Dist. of Sioux City v. Rew, 111 F. 1, 1901 U.S. App. LEXIS 4358 (8th Cir. 1901).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge,

after stating the case as. above, delivered the opinion of the court.

The act of congress of August 13, 1888 (25 Stat. 434), contains this provision:

“Nor shall any circuit or district court have cognizance of any suit, except upon foreign bills of exchange, to recover the contents of any promissory note or other chose in action in favor of any assignee, or of any subsequent holder if such instrument be payable to bearer and be not made by any corporation, unless such suit might have been prosecuted in such court to recover the said contents if no assignment or transfer had been made.”

Under this statute an action cannot be maintained in the circuit court upon an assigned instrument made by a corporation, which is not payable to bearer, unless such an action could have been maintained by the assignor. If, however, the assigned instrument is payable to the bearer, the assignee may recover in the federal court, whether his assignor could have done so or not. Lyon Co. v. Keene Five Cent Sav. Bank, 100 Fed. 337, 338, 40 C. C. A. 391, 392; Newgass v. City of New Orleans (C. C.) 33 Fed. 196; Rollins v. Chaffee Co. (C. C.) 34 Fed. 91; Wilson v. Knox Co. (C. C.) 43 Fed. 481; Cloud v. City of Sumas (C. C.) 52 Fed. 177; Benjamin v. City of New Orleans (C. C.) 71 Fed. 758. In the case now in hand the bonds were payable to the order of a citizen of the state of the 'defendant, and, because he could not have maintained an action in the federal court, no subsequent holder could do so., But the coupons, on the other hand, were payable to bearer, and were made by a municipal corporation, so that they fell within the express terms of the exception to the prohibition of the statute; and any holder of them who was a citizen of a different state from that of the plaintiff in error could lawfully maintain his action upon them in the national courts.

In this state of the case, counsel for the plaintiff in error contend that the defendant in error deprived the court below of its jurisdiction because he pleaded the cause of action on the coupons in the same counts with those upon the bonds. His petition consisted of xo counts. In each of these counts he pleaded a bond, the recitals therein, and all the unpaid coupons originally attached to it, and alleged that the bond and the coupons had been sold and transferred together to the same parties at the same times and under the same circumstances. It is difficult to conceive how this pleading could have deprived the circuit court of jurisdiction over the causes of action upon the coupons. Each coupon was a separable promise, distinct from the promises to pay the bonds and the promises to pay •the other coupons, and it gave rise to a separate cause of action. Nor was this cause of action accessory to the demand on the bond to which the coupon was attached. It was not only a separate cause of action, but a principal and primary one. City of Aurora v. West, 7 Wall. 82, 19 L. Ed. 42; Amy v. City of Dubuque, 98 U. S. 470, 473, 25 L. Ed. 228; Nesbit v. Independent Dist., 144 U. S. 610, 12 Sup. Ct. 746, 36 L. Ed. 562; Edwards v. Bates Co., 163 U. S. 269, 273, 16 Sup. Ct. 967, 41 L. Ed. 155. The amount claimed upon the [5]*5causes of action upon the coupons was sufficient to give the court jurisdiction, regardless of the claims upon the bonds. The defendant in error therefore presented to the court below, by his causes of action upon his coupons alone, controversies between citizens of different states which involved more than the jurisdictional amount. The circuit court could not lawfully disregard these causes of action of which it had plenary jurisdiction because the defendant in error pleaded other causes of which it could not lawfully take cognizance. A federal court is not deprived of jurisdiction of causes of-action of which it is authorized and required to take cognizance by the fact that the plaintiff has joined with them in the same action and petition other causes of which it has no jurisdiction. The objection to the jurisdiction of the court was properly overruled.

The chief complaint concerning the action of the court below, however, is that it held that the independent school district was estopped by the recitals in the bonds and in the resolution of the board of directors of the district township from defeating the coupons in the hands of an innocent purchaser either on the ground that neither the bonds nor their proceeds were used to pay judgments, or on the ground that the debt of the township exceeded the constitutional limitation when the bonds were issued. Many objections to this ruling have been presented. One of them is that the recitals in the bonds are not available to the plaintiff in an action on the coupons, and that the municipality can be estopped by them only in an action on the instruments which contain the recitals; that is to say, on the bonds themselves. But it is not indispensable to the effectiveness of an estoppel that the acts, words, or deeds which work it shall» be contained in a negotiable instrument or in any written contract which is the basis of the action. They are as fatal when found in instruments not negotiable, in writings which are not the basis of the action, when they are mere spoken words, and when they are silent and deceitful acts, as they are when they are contained in a bond or note which is the subject of the action. In Southern Minnesota Ry. Extension Co. v. St. Paul & S. C. R. Co., 55 Fed. 690, 696, 5 C. C. A. 249, 255, 12 U. S. App. 320, 331, and in Board v. Platt, 79 Fed. 567, 573, 25 C. C. A. 87, 93, 49 U. S. App. 216, 224, judgments which were not the bases of the actions were held to constitute estoppels. In Union Pac. R. Co. v. U. S., 67 Fed. 975, 15 C. C. A. 123, 32 U. S. App. 311; Naddo v. Bardon, 51 Fed. 493, 2 C. C. A. 335, 4 U. S. App. 642; Commission Co. v. Patillo, 90 Fed. 628, 631, 33 C. C. A. 194, 197, 61 U. S. App. 94, 100; and in the Omaha Bridge Cases, 51 Fed. 309, 327, 2 C. C. A. 174, 241, 10 U. S. App. 98, 188,—silence and acquiescence wrought fatal estoppels. In Illinois Trust & Savings Bank v. City of Arkansas City, 76 Fed. 271, 294, 22 C. C. A. 171, 194, 40 U. S. App. 257, 296, 34 L. R. A. 518, the acts of the city dehors the contract upon which the action was founded worked a fatal estoppel against it. And in City of Huron v. Second Ward Sav. Bank, 86 Fed. 272, 30 C. C. A. 38, 57 U. S. App. 593, 49 L. R. A. 534; Hughes Co. v. Livingston, 104 Fed. 306, 43 C. C. A. 541; Grattan Tp. v. Chilton, 97 Fed. 145, 38 C. C. A. 84; Board v. Sutliff, 97 Fed. 270, 38 C. C. A. 167; and City of South St. Paul v. Lamprecht Bros. [6]*6Co., 88 Fed. 449, 31 C. C. A. 585, 60 U. S. App. 78,—the recitals in niuniei'pal bonds were held to conclusively estop the defendants in suits' upon the coupons from maintaining defenses inconsistent with the statements contained in the recitals. The-principle of estoppel is; broad'and universal. It is that one who by his acts or representations, or by his silence when he ought to speak out, intentionally or through culpable negligence induces another to believe certain facts to exist, and the latter rightfully acts on such a belief so that he will be prejudiced if the former is permitted to deny the existence of such facts, is thereby conclusively estopped from interposing such denial. It is as fatal when the deceitful acts or silence are without, as when they are within, the contract counted upon. The recitals in the bonds and in the resolution of the board were as available to the defendant in error to raise an estoppel against the district in an action upon the coupons as they would have been in an action upon the bonds. v

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Bluebook (online)
111 F. 1, 1901 U.S. App. LEXIS 4358, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/independent-school-dist-of-sioux-city-v-rew-ca8-1901.