O'Hara v. Mobile & O. R.

75 F. 130, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 3514
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Missouri
DecidedDecember 30, 1895
DocketNo. 3,851
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 75 F. 130 (O'Hara v. Mobile & O. R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
O'Hara v. Mobile & O. R., 75 F. 130, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 3514 (circtedmo 1895).

Opinion

ADAMS, District Judge.

By an agreement of lease dated January 12,1893 (hereafter called the “O’Hara Lease”) the plaintiff in the above-entitled action leased to the defendant 200 box cars for a term of 12 months. The defendant agreed to pay therefor to the plaintiff a monthly rental of $7.50 per car. The plaintiff sues on this agreement, and alleges in his petition that, pursuant to its terms, he delivered the cars to the defendant, and that the defendant failed and refused, at the end of the year, to return said cars to the plaintiff, but retained the same in its possession until August 1, 1894, whereby the plaintiff was damaged in the reasonable value of the use thereof, in the sum'of $10,290. The plaintiff also alleges that the defendant did not pay the rent reserved for said cars for the last two months of the above-mentioned term, amounting to $2,540. The plaintiff therefore says there is justly due him for the aforesaid use and rental the sum of $12,830, for which he asks judgment.

[131]*131There are two defenses pleaded to this action. The first is that the plaintiff acquired these cars, with others, prior to leasing them to defendant, from the Railroad Equipment Company, and, in payment therefor, executed and delivered to the last-named company a large number of notes, or "lease warrants,” as they are called in evidence, each lease warrant representing an agreed monthly payment; that a lease was executed by said Railroad Equipment Company to the plaintiff (hereafter called "Equipment Lease”) expressing the terms and provisions of the transfer; that among them there appears the following:

“The said lessee [O’Hara] further agrees, in ca.se of any default on his part under this agreement, that all the mileage or other earnings of said railroad rolling stock and equipment shall then and thereafter be and become payable to said lessor [Railroad Equipment (’ompany] and assigns, and be by said lessor applied to the payment of the installments of rent then due and payable, and thereafter falling- due and payable; and the said lessee hereby agrees forthwith, upon such default, to notify the proper parties to pay over such earnings to the said lessor and assigns. Such notice, however, shall not be necessary in order to enable the said lessor and assigns to collect and receive such earnings in case of such default. In case of default in payment of any installment or installments of rent on the day on which the same falls due hereunder, the said lessor and assigns shall have the right to declare due and payable all the installments herein provided for, including those not at that time matured, a.nd shall also have the right, at its option, by its agents, employes, or attorneys, to take immediate and exclusive possession of, and remove, any and all of said railroad rolling stock and equipment which may have been delivered to the said lessee under this agreement, and Cor that purpose may pursue the same or a,ny part thereof wherever it may be found, and shall have the right to sell the same,” etc.

Defendant:, after setting forth the foregoing facts in its answer, alleges that the said OTlara, plaintiff herein, defaulted in the payment of the lease warrants above mentioned on the 1st day of June, 1893, and continued so in default until the expiration of the term provided for in the O’Hara lease; that this defendant bad knowledge of all the terms and provisions of the Equipment lease at the time it leased said cars from O’Hara. 1'n fact, the evidence shows that a copy of the Equipment lease was delivered by O’Hara to the defendant with the 0’IIa.ra lease: Defendant, in its answer, further says that, pursuant to the provisions of said Equipmen (: lease, O’Hara, at the time of such default, in June, 1893, directed the defendant to pay the monthly rentals for said cars, as they might fall due, to the Railroad Equipment Company; that, pursuant to such directions, the defendant paid each month’s rent due under the O’Hara lease to the Railroad Equipment Company, until the 1st day of November, 1893; that, on and after the last-mentioned date, a controversy arose between OTlara and the Railroad Equipment Company with respect to their rights to the rental for the last two mouths of the term, namely, November and December, and in respect to the ownership of the cars and to whom the same should be delivered at the expiration of the term; that each and both of said parties demanded the same; and that, for the reasons aforesaid, the defendant paid no more rental, and declined to deliver the cars at the end of the term [132]*132to the plaintiff. And, for a second defense, the defendant says that it was in possession of the cars at the expiration of its lease thereof, to wit, the 12th day of January, 1894; that it owed the rent for the two months preceding; that both O’Hara and the Railroad Equipment Company demanded the balance of the rental, and at the end of the term demanded possession of the cars, each claiming to be entitled to and to own the same; that defendant declined to recognize either until they should adjust and settle their rights with respect thereto; that afterwards, on the 1st day of August, 1894, the Railroad Equipment Company and the Atlantic Trust Company, who owned many, if not all, the above-mentioned lease warrants, instituted a suit in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois, making the plaintiff, Henry O’Hara, and the defendant, Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company, parties defendant; that in said suit (hereafter called the “Illinois Case”) a receiver was appointed, to take possession of the said cars, and to collect the rents and profits which had accrued from use thereof; that such proceedings were afterwards had in said last-mentioned suit that a final decree was entered therein on the 26th day of September, 1895, adjudging and decreeing the full title to all said railroad cars and unpaid earnings arising therefrom to be fully vested in the said complainants, — that is to say, the Railroad Equipment Company and the Atlantic Trust Company; and that the said defendant Henry O’Hara be forever foreclosed and barred of and from any right, title, or interest whatever in and to said cars and earnings aforesaid, and every part thereof. The defendant pleads the decree and judgment in the last-mentioned cause as res adjudicata of the matter in controversy in this suit. The parties went to trial on the issues presented by this answer.

The first defense is, in substance, that by reason of O’Hara’s default in paying the monthly rentals provided for in the Equipment lease, and by reason of the covenants contained in that lease, all of which were made known to the defendant in this case, Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company, the plaintiff’s right to the rentals due from the defendant under the O’Hara lease, and also the plaintiff’s right to the possession of the cars at the end of the term created by the O’Hara lease, ceased, and that, therefore, the plaintiff cannot maintain this action. For the purposes of this case, in legal intendment, the lease from the Railroad Equipment Company to O’Hara is the equivalent of a mortgage back from O’Hara, as mortgagor, to the Railroad Equipment Company, as mortgagee, transferring to the last-named company the rentals which O’Hara might be entitled to under a sublease, as security for the prompt and punctual payment of the lease warrants provided for in the Equipment lease.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
75 F. 130, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 3514, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ohara-v-mobile-o-r-circtedmo-1895.