Phipps v. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co.

284 F. 945, 28 A.L.R. 1184, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2489
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedOctober 9, 1922
DocketNo. 5778
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 284 F. 945 (Phipps v. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. 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
Phipps v. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co., 284 F. 945, 28 A.L.R. 1184, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2489 (8th Cir. 1922).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The evidence in this case has convinced that the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company was insolvent before and solvent after Judge Carpenter, under his final decree in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, delivered its property back to it, and for convenience that corporation before that delivery under the final decree will be called the insolvent company and after that delivery the reorganized company.

Counsel for Mr. Phipps assail the decree of the court below which enjoins him from enforcing his judgment against the railway company and its property by execution, or in any other way than that specified in the final decree of the District Court of the Northern District of Illinois and in the ancillary decree of the court below in the creditors’ suits on many grounds. That upon which they seem to place their chief reliance is that those decrees are void against Mr. Phipps, because those courts without a judicial sale adjudged the delivery of the property of the insolvent railway company to the reorganized company, and enjoined Phipps from interfering with it, or enforcing his judgment against it or against the railway company in any other way than through those courts in the creditors’ consolidated cause, by taking the interest on his claim in cash and the $7,000 of 6 per cent, preferred stock of the reorganized company, which those courts adjudged to be his just and equitable share of the property of the company to which he was entitled. In support of this contention they cite and the court has examined Kansas City Southern R. Co. v. Guardian Trust Co. et al., 240 U. S. 166, 36 Sup. Ct. 334, 60 L. Ed. 579; Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Boyd, 228 U. S. 482, 33 Sup. Ct. 554, 57 L. Ed. 931; Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Bloom, 164 U. S. 636, 17 Sup. Ct. 216, 41 L. Ed. 580; Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Johnson, 151 U. S. 81, 14 Sup. Ct. 250, 38 L. Ed. 81; Southern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Bogert, 250 U. S. 483, 39 Sup. Ct. 533, 63 L. Ed. 1099. But the opinions and decisions in those cases do not consider or rule the question in this case, because in none of them had the court, in the decree assailed, considered,' adjudged, secured, or offered to the complainant his or its fair and just share of the property of the insolvent ■corporation it was administering and distributing, while in .the case in hand the courts by their decrees carefully adjudged, secured, and still secure to Mr. Phipps his equitable share of the property which the court administered and distributed.

The vice which rendered the foreclosure, judicial sale, and delivery of the property to the reorganized corporation voidable by unsecured [949]*949creditors in the Boyd Case, 177 Fed. 804, 101 C. C. A. 18, Id., 228 U. S. 482, 502, 504, 33 Sup. Ct. 554, 57 L. Ed. 931, and in the Kansas City Southern Railway Co. Case, 240 U. S. 166, 36 Sup. Ct. 334, 60 L. Ed. 579, was not the lack of judicial sales of the property under the decrees, but the fact that under the plans of reorganization and by the decrees in those cases the stockholders of the insolvent corporations were given for their stock beneficial interests in the reorganized companies by the way of stocks, bonds, or other securities, while the unsecured creditors of the insolvent companies were given nothing. That vice does not inhere in the plan of reorganization or in the decrees in the case at bar. That plan and those decrees secured to Mr. Phipps and to the other unsecured creditors beneficial interests in the reorganized company of much greater proportionate value than those thereby secured to the stockholders of the insolvent company.

Nor does the Boyd Case nor the Kansas City Southern Case lend any support to the argument that plans of reorganization and decrees which secure or offer to creditors their just and equitable shares of the beneficial interests in the reorganized corporations are voidable by such creditors, unless they are executed by judicial sales of the property of the insolvent corporations. There were judicial sales under the decrees in those cases, and yet those decrees and sales were held voidable by creditors. The decisions in those cases demonstrate the fact that judicial sales are futile to extract the vice of a failure by a plan of reorganization and decree to secure to creditors their equitable shares of the beneficial interests in the reorganized corporations, and that fact is in itself a persuasive argument that a plan of reorganization and decree which does adjudge and secure or offer to the creditors their just and fair shares of the benefits of the reorganized company, either in its stocks, bonds, or other securities, is just, fair, and impervious to the attacks of such creditors, although no judicial sale is adjudged thereby or made thereunder.

When the American Steel Foundries and the Bankers’ Trust Company had brought their suits on behalf of themselves and all other unsecured creditors against the railway company in the District Court in Illinois on complaints which stated the inability of the railway company to continue to operate its railroad and its inability to pay the judgment against it for more than $20,000,000, and had prayed for the administration and distribution of all its property to its creditors, when the railway company had answered and joined in that prayer, when the court had appointed ,a receiver, he had taken possession of, and the court had thereby impounded for the benefit of the unsecured creditors, subject to the lien of the secured creditors, all the property of the railway company, that court held all that property in trust, subject to the liens of the secured creditors, to operate it and to distribute it or its proceeds to all the unsecured creditors and all the stockholders of the insolvent company according to the respective ranks and equities of their claims. Every unsecured creditor then and thereafter was a cestui que trust of the court, entitled to a like interest in the property in proportion to the amount of his claim, as every other such [950]*950creditor and every stockholder was a cestui que trust of the court, entitled to a like interest in the property in proportion to the amount qf his stock to that of every other stockholder. When that court had so operated the property, and by its decree had so distributed either the property itself or its proceeds, it had faithfully executed its trust and rendered the right decree. Nor was it indispensable to such a just result, or to a lawful decree, that the interest or share of any of the cestuis que trust should be secured or paid to him or it in cash. It was within the power and the judicial discretion of the court to adjudge and secure that interest or share to him or it in the stock, bonds, or other securities of the reorganized company. Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Boyd, 228 U. S. 482, 508, 33 Sup. Ct. 554, 57 L. Ed. 931.

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Bluebook (online)
284 F. 945, 28 A.L.R. 1184, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2489, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/phipps-v-chicago-r-i-p-ry-co-ca8-1922.