Rhode Island Locomotive Works v. Continental Trust Co.

108 F. 5, 12 Ohio F. Dec. 327, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 3845
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedNovember 7, 1900
DocketNo. 788
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 108 F. 5 (Rhode Island Locomotive Works v. Continental Trust Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rhode Island Locomotive Works v. Continental Trust Co., 108 F. 5, 12 Ohio F. Dec. 327, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 3845 (6th Cir. 1900).

Opinion

LURTON,- Circuit Judge,

after making the foregoing statement of the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

The attitude of the appellant as a general unsecured creditor of [7]*7the railroad company is admitted. That any special lien exists upon the locomotives for the security of this part oí the purchase price is not-now contended, if the appellant is to obtain any relief, it must show: First, that the demand here presented is not a debt created upon the personal credit of the company, but a current operating expense incurred to maintain the property as a going concern, and its railroad in condition tobe used with reasonable safety for the transportation of persons and property, and with the expectation of the parties that it was to be met out of the current receipts of the company; and, second, that there are net or current earnings now applicable to (he payment of such debts of the income, or that there has been a diversion of the current earnings, either before or since the receivership, which the mortgagees should equitably restore. International Trust Co. v. T. B. Townsend Brick & Contracting Co., 37 C. C. A. 396, 95 Fed. 859; Central Trust Co. v. East Tennessee, V. & G. R. Co., 26 C. C. A. 30, 80 Fed. 624; Virginia & A. Coal Co. v. Cen tral R. & Banking Co., 170 U. S. 305, 18 Sup. Ct. 657, 42 L. Ed. 1068; Southern Ry. Co. v. Carnegie Steel Co., 176 U. S. 257, 285, 20 Sup. Ct. 347, 44 L. Ed. 458. The acquisition of additional motive power was the addition of permanent equipment, and it is not shown that such additional equipment was at all necessary to maintain the railroad as a going concern, or necessary “to keep the railroad itself in condition to he used in reasonable safety for the transportation of persons and property,” as was found to be the case in Southern Ry. Co. v. Carnegie Steel Co., cited above, where a debt for steel rails was held to be a preferential debt. The most that can be said to justify so large a purchase of additional equipment is that it was necessary to the enlargement of the capacity of the railroad company to conduct its traffic. Thai: such a great investment in permanent equipment was not deemed an ordinary current operating expense would seem to have been recognized by the circumstances of the transaction. The Khode Island Locomotive Works contracted that 80 per cent, of the sale price should be paid to it by the New York Equipment Company, and the equipment company secured itself for the advance by taking and retaining the title until this advance should be repaid. To the extent that the vendor gave credit to the railroad company, it took care that there should not be reliance upon current earnings as a fund to meet the obligation,' but that S. H. Kneeland should indorse the company’s notes, and thus stand as a security to it. That by these notes the sum payable was distributed through a number of monthly payments is. of course, a circumstance to be considered in determining whether the,debt was one contracted upon the expectation that it would be met out of current earnings, Tm( it is not sufficient, in view of all of the circumstances connected ■with this transaction. We concur, therefore, with Circuit Judge Taft in his conclusion that this demand is not one of that limited class of debts called “debts of the income,” and was not one of the class of dehis included in the equity or letter of the order made with respect: to debts properly payable out of the Income of the receivership. In Fosdick v. Schall, 99 U. S. 235, 25 L. Ed. 339, and in Kneeland v. Trust Co., 136 U. S. 89, 10 Sup. Ct. 950, 34 L. Ed. 379, and [8]*8in Thomas v. Car Co., 149 U. S. 95, 13 Sup. Ct. 824, 37 L. Ed. 663, debts for the rental of cars were beld not to be preferential debts. In Huidekoper v. Locomotive Works, 99 U. S. 258, 25 L. Ed. 344, a debt due as part of the purchase price of locomotives purchased, the vendor retaining the title as security, wras held not to be an equitable claim upon the income of the receivership, but a general unsecured debt. That the equipment purchased added to the earning power of the railroad company, and has augmented the security held by the mortgagees, is an element to be considered in passing upon the claim; but this fact has never been regarded as in itself justifying the displacement of an antecedent mortgage. International Trust Co. v. T. B. Townsend Brick & Contracting Co., 37 C. C. A. 396, 409, 95 Fed. 850, where the cases are collected and reviewed. In Southern Ry. Co. v. Carnegie Steel Co. the supreme court took care to avoid throwing doubt upon the earlier adjudications of that court by saying:

“We must not be understood as saying that a general, unsecured creditor of an insolvent railroad corporation in the hands of a receiver is entitled to priority over mortgage creditors in the distribution of net earnings simply because that which he furnished to the company prior to the appointment of the receiver was for the preservation of the property and for the benefit of the mortgage securities. That, no doubt, is an important element in the matter. Before, however, such a creditor is accorded a preference over mortgage creditors in the distribution of net earnings in the hands of a receiver of a railroad company, it should reasonably appear from all the circumstances, including the amount involved and the terms of, payment, that the debt was one fairly to be regarded as part of the operating expenses of the railroad incurred in the ordinary course of business, and to be met out of current receipts.”

The same conclusion might be reached upon the ground that it does not appear that there are any funds growing out of the receivership which remain to be applied to debts of the income or upon the mortgage debt. Fosdick v. Schall, 99 U. S. 235, 254, 25 L. Ed. 339. If the demand of the appellant is to be paid at all, it must be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of the mortgaged property of the railroad company at the expense of' the mortgagees. But before this can be done it must be made to appear that there has been a diversion of current earnings, by which this complainant has been deprived of his equitable rights, and that the mortgagees should equitably restore to the fund liable to the payment of debts of the income the fund thus diverted. In International Trust Co. v. T. B. Townsend Brick & Contracting Co., cited above, we had occasion- to consider the circumstances under which the proceeds of the corpus of á mortgaged railroad might, be applied to the payment of an unsecured creditor in preference to the mortgagee, and said:

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Bluebook (online)
108 F. 5, 12 Ohio F. Dec. 327, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 3845, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rhode-island-locomotive-works-v-continental-trust-co-ca6-1900.