Metropolitan Trust Co. of New York v. Chicago & E. I. R.

253 F. 868, 165 C.C.A. 348, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1605
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 1, 1918
DocketNo. 2530
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 253 F. 868 (Metropolitan Trust Co. of New York v. Chicago & E. I. R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Metropolitan Trust Co. of New York v. Chicago & E. I. R., 253 F. 868, 165 C.C.A. 348, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1605 (7th Cir. 1918).

Opinion

AESCHUEER, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The questions presented and considered in the exhaustive briefs and arguments arc mainly and in substance: (1) Was the lien of the Metropolitan mortgage extended by virtue of the consolidation agreement of 1894 to any property of the Consolidated Company thereafter acquired? (2) Does the lien of the Metropolitan mortgage attach to any equipment acquired after the consolidation of 1894, apart from the effect to he given specific provisions of the consolidation agreement? (3) In Ihc enumeration of the property to he included in the various parcels to be separately offered for sale, should certain parts have been included with the Coal Railway property which by the decree of sale are not therewith included?

[1] Preceding the consideration of the first and main question we may stale as a legal principle, applicable to railroad mortgages having the usual after-acquired provisions, the following from the first brief filed for appellant, that—

“Ordinarily on the consolidation of two corporations (ho lion of tho mortgage of tho constituent does not spread to the properly contributed by tho other constituent, or to the after-acquired property of the consolidated company” — citing in support New York Security Co. v. Louisville, etc., R. Co. (C. C.) 102 Fed. 382; Hinchman v. Point Defiance R. R. Co., 14 Wash. 349, 44 Pac. 867; Gibert v. Washington City R. R., 33 Grat. (Va.) 586; Compton v. Jesup, 68 Fed. 263, 15 C. C. A. 397.

[ 2 ] To maintain that the Metropolitan mortgage lien was extended to all the property thus passing to and afterwards acquired by the Consolidated Company, tliere must therefore appear conditions effective to that end, aside from the mere fact of the consolidation itself. Appellant’s counsel assume to find ample authority for the contention in 14 words of article VII of the consolidation agreement of 1894. which words are, referring to the Metropolitan and the Central Trust mortgages: “Shall have the force and effect of first mortgages executed by this consolidated company.” It is contended that these words constituted the i\Ietropolitan mortgage for all intents and, purposes the mortgage of the Consolidated Company, and under the after-acquired property provisions of that mortgage subjected to its lien all the property of the Consolidated Company then or at any time thereafter owned or acquired.

The dominating influence of these words as bearing upon this question is thus stated in the brief for appellant:

‘‘The determinative question (aside from questions relating to certain equipment and to ..the method of sale decreed) is nothing more, or less than the proper construction and legal effect of 14 words in a written instrument, namely, the articles of consolidation whereby in 1894 the Chicago & Eastern [872]*872Illinois Railroad Company (itself a consolidated company of Illinois and Indiana) and the Chicago & Indiana Coal Railway Company (an Indiana corporation and also a consolidated company) consolidated to form the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Company, a corporation of Illinois and Indiana.”

The context of these words is shown in the entire article VII, reproduced as a footnote1 with the fourteen words italicized.

If these words must ultimately determine whether or not the lien of the Metropolitan mortgage was extended to property acquired by the company at and after the consolidation of 1894, we must in construing them, consider not only the words themselves, but their relation to other parts of the same instrument, and the situation of the parties and the property as well, and in case of any doubt, such construction, if any, as all concerned gave to them before any controversy arose.

It appears that long before the formal consolidation of 1894 the constituent Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Company was an Illinois corporation, with its lines of railroad practically all in Illinois. It had theretofore acquired all the capital stock of the Coal Railway Company in exchange for its own stock, and it had in addition a 999-year lease of all of the Coal Railway property, and was operating that road as a part of its general system, although the separate corporate existence of the two was being formally maintained. After some years of such management it was deemed advisable that there be a consolidation of the corporation, already under the same ownership and direction, and this was undertaken. Thus managed, there was no occasion for careful weighing of the terms or expressions to be employed in effecting the consolidation. One legal repre[873]*873sentative acted for both parties to the agreement, and there was not to be expected that degree of circumspection in the selection of words and phrases as would probably have been the case had there been contracting parties with interests in conflict. The mortgagees of the divisional mortgages were in no manner represented, and the several liens under their mortgages on property existent were not and could not have been affected by that transaction. The claim is that the fourteen words of the agreement made the Metropolitan and the Central Trust divisional mortgages both first mortgages of the Consolidated Company, with the practical effect, so far as concerns the present action, of extending each of the mortgages to all of the property of the company covered by the other, and under the after-acquired provisions of the mortgages, giving each a lien on all property thereafter acquired by the newly consolidated company.

If this is the purpose of the 14 words, they could not in fact have effected this end. Concedcdly neither these nor any other words which the two mortgagors might in the agreement for consolidation have employed could have given the Metropolitan bondholders a first mortgage on the already mortgaged property of the constituent Chicago & Eastern Illinois Company, nor could the Central Trust bondholders have thus secured a first mortgage on the already mortgaged propei'ty of the constituent Coal Railway Company. The stockholders might consolidate the corporations, but they could not consolidate the separate mortgages giveii on the distinct properties of the separate .corporations. By their very terms the 14 words, if purporting to make of each of these mortgages a new first mortgage of the Consolidated Company, would give to each of the mortgagees a first mortgage on all its then existing property, and on all it might thereafter acquire — a result clearly impossible, and which it E not at all likely it was any more intended than it could have been effected.

Nor can it with reason he contended that by these words it was intended that each mortgagee, retaining its lien upon the property mortgaged, was granted a second mortgage on 1he other’s property, subject to the prior lien of the other mortgage. The 14 words do not purport to have such effect, nor is such construction warranted by any other part of the article or the instrument.

It is insisted that the immediately following words of the article further appellant’s contention. They are:

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Bluebook (online)
253 F. 868, 165 C.C.A. 348, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1605, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/metropolitan-trust-co-of-new-york-v-chicago-e-i-r-ca7-1918.