Merriam v. St. Louis, Cape Girardeau & Fort Smith Railway Co.

36 S.W. 630, 136 Mo. 145, 1896 Mo. LEXIS 316
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedDecember 1, 1896
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 36 S.W. 630 (Merriam v. St. Louis, Cape Girardeau & Fort Smith Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Merriam v. St. Louis, Cape Girardeau & Fort Smith Railway Co., 36 S.W. 630, 136 Mo. 145, 1896 Mo. LEXIS 316 (Mo. 1896).

Opinion

Gantt, P. J.

This is an appeal from an order of the Iron county circuit court, made August 2, 1895, refusing to revoke and set aside an order made by said circuit court on August 1, 1895, appointing Eli Klotz receiver of the St. Louis, Cape Girardeau & Fort Smith Railway Company.

The appeal is prosecuted under the act of the general assembly of Missouri, of April 11, 1895, entitled, “An act to amend ‘An act to repeal section 2216, Revised Statutes of 1889, and enact in lieu thereof a new section,’ approved April 18, 1891, relating to the taking of appeals from interlocutory orders.” By this amendment an appeal is allowed from an “order refusing to revoke, modify, or change an interlocutory order appointing a receiver or receivers.” Laws of Mo. 1895, p. 91.

The act is remedial and must be liberally construed.

It appears to have followed so closely the decisions of this court in Greeley v. Railroad, 123 Mo. 157, and Merriam v. Railroad, 126 Mo. 445, denying appeals in similar cases, that little doubt can exist of the legislative purpose.

Some suggestions were made in the original brief of the respondent, that it would not cover the appeal in this ease and that there might be some doubt of the constitutionality of the said act for the reason that the amendment provided for the advancement of such appeals and for their summary disposition in this court. That this appeal falls within the terms and spirit of the amendment admits of no serious doubt, nor does the suggestion of its unconstitutionality appear to be founded upon any sound basis, and the learned counsel in his supplemental brief abandons both suggestions and contents himself with the reference to the terms of the amendment and by asserting that the court in its [152]*152consideration of the appeal should confine its inquiry within narrow limits.

In the absence of any restrictive words it would be contrary to the general trend of construction of remedial statutes to adopt such a view. The plain purpose and intent of the legislature should always be effected by the courts when not in conflict with the organic law, and the universal rule for the construction of remedial statutes is that they should receive a liberal, not a strict, interpretation.

As our jurisdiction is appellate we are necessarily restricted to the record brought up for review. With that limitation only it is not only our prerogative but obvious duty to review the action of the circuit court and determine from the law and the facts of the case whether the circuit court exercised a sound judicial discretion in refusing to revoke the appointment of the receiver. Unquestionably the propriety of the appointment itself is involved in-this inquiry for on this record it is evident no change had occurred in the meantime in the relation of the parties, as the order was entered on one day and the motion to revoke was filed on the next day. The motion itself was most -carefully drawn and brought-before the court substantially the whole record of the case from its inception on March 3, 1893, in the circuit court of Stoddard county, down to and including the order of August 1, 1895, made in the Iron circuit court, and all the evidence offered has been duly preserved in the record brought to this court on this appeal, so that every fact upon which the circuit court based its action is before us for review.

On the third day of March, 1893, Edwin Gr. Merriam instituted an action in the circuit court of Stoddard county against The St. Louis,. Cape Girardeau & Fort Smith Railway Company, Leo Doyle,, trustee, and The Mercantile Trust Company of New York, trustee, [153]*153and Edward Hidden, trastee. His petition alleged that the defendant railway company' ran from the city of Cape Girardeau, through the counties of Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Stoddard, Wayne, and Carter to Hunter in the last named county; that said company on September 1, 1880, executed its deed of trust to the defendant Leo Doyle as trustee and thereby conveyed to him all and singular the railroad of said company as it was then constructed and was being constructed from the city of Cape Girardeau to Delta, a point on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Eailway Company in said county, a distance of about fifteen miles, together with rights of way, depot grounds, railway engines and other property belonging to said railway company (a copy of which mortgage was made a part of said petition) to secure the payment of one hundred bonds of $1,000 each and numbered from one to one hundred inclusive, payable to bearer on the first day of September, A. D. 1900, with interest at the rate of six per cent per annum payable semiannually, a copy of which said bond is set forth in said mortgage.

It is further averred that the said railway company afterward on July 18, 1881, made a second mortgage whereby it conveyed to said Doyle all and singular the following property and premises, to wit: “All and singular its said railroad as the same was then constructed or being constructed from Delta, a town or point on the Belmont branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Eailroad Company, to a point at or near Lakeville in Stoddard county, Missouri, a distance of ten or eleven miles, together with rights of way, depot grounds, railway fences, bridges, station houses, engine houses, machine shops,” etc., to secure the payment of one hundred and seventy bonds of that date of two series, respectively series A and B, series A being from one to seventy and for $1,000 each, and [154]*154series B from one to one hundred for $100 each, all payable to bearer September 1, 1901, with interest at six per cent, payable semiannually.

It is then averred that said plaintiff Merriam was the owner and holder of twenty-seven of said bonds secured by the mortgage of September 1,1880, for $1,000 each and forty-eight of said bonds for $1,000 each of series A secured by the mortgage of July 18,1881, and twelve of the bonds of series B secured by said mortgage of July 18,1881, for $100 each, aggregating bonds to the number of eighty-seven of the par value of $76,200.

It is further alleged that in 1885 the said railway company, under the name of Cape Girardeau Southwestern Railway Company, on the first day of December, 1885, made still another mortgage to said Leo Doyle, the same property conveyed in the two last described mortgages, to secure two hundred and fifty bonds of $1,000 each, therein named series “D,,; and two hundred bonds of $100 each, denominated series “E,” aggregating $270,000.

It is further averred that on the twenty-sixth day of May, 1888, the said Cape Girardeau Southwestern Railway Company conveyed to the Mercantile Trust Company among other property a part of that conveyed by said two first described mortgages and subject to the last named mortgages to secure an indebtedness evidenced by bonds to the amount of $1,000,000, of the denomination of $1,000 each, for the purpose in part of redeeming or exchanging the bonds theretofore issued by said railway company and for the purpose of extinguishing the floating debt of said railway company, said mortgage being designated the consolidated mortgage; that some of said divisional mortgage bonds had been exchanged for said consolidated bonds.

Still another mortgage for $200,000 is alleged to have been executed to said Leo Doyle, May 27,1882.

[155]

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Bluebook (online)
36 S.W. 630, 136 Mo. 145, 1896 Mo. LEXIS 316, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/merriam-v-st-louis-cape-girardeau-fort-smith-railway-co-mo-1896.