Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. Southern Trust Co.

279 F. 801, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1623
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedMarch 8, 1922
DocketNos. 5756, 5757
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 279 F. 801 (Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. Southern Trust 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
Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. Southern Trust Co., 279 F. 801, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1623 (8th Cir. 1922).

Opinion

TRIEBER, District Judge.

This is the second appeal in this case. The opinion of this court on the former appeal will be found in 261 Fed. 765, where the facts relating to the foreclosure proceedings and the decree entered therein are fully set out and need not be repeated herein. That appeal was prosecuted without a supersedeas, and pending the appeal the entire property was sold in conformity with the de[802]*802cr;e as an entirety, and purchased by the bondholders’ protective committee of the mortgage to the Southern Trust Company. For convenience the parties will be referred to as appellants and appellees as they appear in No. 5756.

The purchase price was $275,000, and the sale confirmed by the court. The decree provided that the purchaser at said sale may turn in the receiver’s certificates and the bonds and coupons secured by the mortgage of the Arkansas, Oklahoma & Western Company to the Southern Trust Company, in payment of his bid to the extent that the distributive shares of the purchase money will be applicable to such receiver’s certificates or bonds or coupons, after payment of the prior debts and costs oi suit.

The main controversy was as to the priority of the mortgage of the Arkansas, Oklahoma & Western Railroad Company to the Southern Trust Company and that to the Mississippi Valley Trust Company; the latter mortgage executed by the Kansas City & Memphis Railway C Dmpany, and covering the property purchased and constructed by the Kansas City & Memphis Railway Company, after fits purchase from the Oklahoma Company, and also that part-purchased from the Oklahoma Company, the latter subject to the Southern Trust Company mortgage.

The decree of the District Court had declared the mortgage by the Arkansas, Oklahoma & Western Railroad Company, hereafter referred tc as the Oklahoma Company, to be superior to the mortgage of the Mississippi Valley Trust Company on the entire system. This court reversed that decree, holding that the mortgage of ’the Mississippi Valley Trust Company was a first mortgage on the new lines purchased and constructed by the Memphis Company, after the purchase from the Oklahoma Company, and not subordinate to the mortgage of the Southern Trust Company.

After the reversal of the original decree by this court, the Kansas City Southern Railway Company filed its intervening petition; asserting its rights under the receiver’s certificates owned by it, and praying restitution of the property upon which its receiver’s certificates were a paramount lien. The Mississippi Valley Trust Company also filed a motion for restitution, and asking that certain allowances made by the court to the Southern Trust Company as trustee, and its attorneys in the foreclosure proceedings, amounting to $13,000 and the allowance of $1,000 to the master, who made the sale, be set aside, so far as its rights are affected, and also the costs of the sale, and that they be charged against the property purchased from the Oklahoma road and vnder mortgage to the Southern Trust Company. It also asked that tie proceeds of sale of a certain locomotive be decreed to be the property of the part of the railway on which the Mississippi Valley Trust Company was decreed to have a superior lien; that there be restitution to the Mississippi Valley Trust Company of the value of all property sold, on which its mortgage is a prior lien and also the value of the locomotive hereinbefore mentioned; and that the purchasers of the [803]*803property be required to pay into court the value of the same, when determined.

The response of the Southern Trust Company was that, as no appeal was taken from that part of the original decree directing a sale of the property in its entirety or as one parcel, that part of the decree became final. The same plea is made to the objections of the allowances made by the court to the Southern Trust Company as trustee and its attorneys, and the costs. It denied that the Southern Trust Company is liable for the purchase money of the locomotive, as it received no part of it, it having been applied in paying the taxes of the entire line of the Memphis Company; that the original decree directing a sale, having been a final decree, the only liability of the purchasers is for the proportion of the purchase price, to which the Mississippi Valley Trust Company is entitled.

There was considerable testimony taken as to the value of the property, of which restitution was asked and a final decree rendered, holding that the sale having been confirmed, and no'appeal therefrom taken from these parts of the decree, the only question now for determination is the distribution of the $275,000, the proceeds of the sale, in accordance with the rights of the parties.

The court found that the fair value of the property, upon which the Southern Trust Company had a prior lien is two-thirds, and the appellants the other one-third; that the deed qf trust of the Mississippi Valley Trust Company is subject and inferior to the lien of the receiver’s certificates; that the original decree is also final as to the allowances of the various items therein mentioned and the establishment of their order of priority, except so much of the decree as adjudged that the lien of the deed of trust held by the Southern Trust Company, extended to the entire property; that all indebtedness, costs, and expenses which are properly chargeable as against the whole property should be apportioned in the proportion of one-third against the funds going to the Kansas City & Memphis Railway Company, and subject to the lien of the receiver’s certificates and the deed of trust held by the Mississippi Valley Trust Company, and two-thirds against the funds going to the Oklahoma Railroad Company, and subject to the lien of its deed of trust to the Southern Trust Company; that all taxes against the property as an entirety should be charged on the same basis; that all franchise taxes paid to the state of Arkansas, shall be charged to the Memphis Railway Company and subject to the lien of said receiver’s certificates, and on which the deed of trust to the Mississippi Valley Trust Company is a superior lien; that the allowances made to the Southern Trust Company and its attorneys be charged against funds subject to the lien of the deed of trust of the Southern Trust Company.

The court thereupon credited the Southern Trust Company with two-thirds of the proceeds of sale of the railway as an entirety, less two-thirds of the court costs, receiver’s obligations, taxes, except the franchise taxes, and the allowance to it as trustee and its attorneys, leaving due it $86,085.19; that the appellants be paid on receiver’s [804]*804certificates one-third of the purchase price, less one-third of court costs, receiver’s obligations, taxes, and judgments against the receiver, . leaving due it $49,542.59, less the following items:

Tie entire franchise tax.........................................$ 2,705.72
Smithson right of way judgment................................. 519.10
St me right of way judgment..................°.................. 397.36
Ferguson right of way........................................... 10,640.10
George judgment ............................................... 4,566.10

—leaving net amount due on receiver’s certificates to be paid to the Kansas City Southern Railway Company the sum o.f $30,714.21.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
279 F. 801, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1623, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kansas-city-southern-ry-co-v-southern-trust-co-ca8-1922.