Rogers & Tracy, Inc. v. Board of Education

99 F.2d 773, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 2985
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedNovember 30, 1938
DocketNo. 6727
StatusPublished

This text of 99 F.2d 773 (Rogers & Tracy, Inc. v. Board of Education) 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
Rogers & Tracy, Inc. v. Board of Education, 99 F.2d 773, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 2985 (7th Cir. 1938).

Opinion

SPARKS, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from a declaratory judgment ' of the District Court. It involves the validity and title of certain tax anticipation warrants issued by the Board of Education of Park Ridge School District 64, in Illinois. The court held the warrants valid, directed the payment of those which were unpaid, and permanently’ enjoined the Board and its several members from doing anything affecting the validity or enforceability of the warrants involved.

The Board of Education, on May 6, 1936, received bids for $85,000, face value, of its 1936 effiicational tax anticipation warrants, issued pursuant to statutory authority. See Illinois Revised Statutes (1937) chap. 122, § 125.1 Among the bids [775]*775received was that of Jack A. Stull.2 The minutes of the Board on May 7, 1936, show that Stull’s bid was accepted. Following this meeting the secretary of the Board prepared a transcript of the proceedings. It disclosed that the bonds had been delivered and paid for by the purchaser, at a price not less than par and accrued interest. It was signed by the township school treasurer and the president and secretary of the Board, and delivered to Chapman and Cutler, attorneys. They later approved the warrants by written opinion, which they delivered to Stull.

On May 19, 1936, the warrants numbered 1 to 310, inclusive, were signed, and shortly thereafter they were delivered to Stull who executed his receipt therefor. On June 4, 1936, Stull took the opinion and all the warrants to the office of appellee which selected and purchased warrants 1 to 80, inclusive, of the par value of $70,000, for which it caused to be issued a bank cashier’s check tor $68,950 payable to the township treasurer, having deducted the one and one half per cent alleged service charge. The check to the treasurer was delivered to Stull, who in turn delivered it to the treasurer. These warrants are not in issue. On July 6, 1936, appellee obtained from Stull Nos. 81 to 90, inclusive, of the warrants, having a par value of $5,000, paid for by appellee’s check for $4,800, payable to Stull. These were sold by that company to its customers within a day or so afterward. On September 8, 1936, appellee obtained from Stull the remaining warrants numbered 91 to 110, inclusive, of the principal amount of $10,-000, paying for them with its check for $8,296.67 payable to Stull. A day or so later it sold to its customers warrants numbered 91 to 100, inclusive, of the principal amount of $5,000. The remaining ten warrants in the principal amount of $5,000, numbered 101 to 110, inclusive, were never sold or disposed of by appellee. Stull cashed the two checks made payable to him, and retained the money, and appellant, the school district, has never been compensated for warrants numbered 81 to 110, inclusive.

On September 11, 1936, appellee informed the township school treasurer that it had recently obtained from Stull the last $10,000 of warrants, thereby acquiring the entire issue, and upon inquiry appellee also informed him that it had paid Stull the full purchase price for each lot, and gave him the dates of the several transactions. Appellee then learned for the first time that Stull had not paid for warrants numbered 81 to 110, inclusive.

On October 9, 1936, the Board adopted a resolution declaring warrants 81 to 110 null and void, and directing Stull to return them for cancellation, and ordered payment on them stopped. Notice of this resolution was served upon appellee on October 13, 1936, and such notice was attempted to be served upon Stull but he was not found. On October 14, 1936, appellee notified the Board of the invalidity of its resolution, and that it would resort to the necessary legal proceedings against the Board for the protection of its interests and those of its customers.

On October 27, 1936, the Board again passed a resolution declaring warrants 81 to 110, inclusive, void. It recited that the warrants were in the hands of third persons who had received them “without the receipt of the township treasurer of the par value,” or of any other compensation, and it directed the township treasurer to refuse to pay the warrants until the sum of $15,000, with accrued interest from May 12, 1936, had been paid to him by the holders or their agents. Notice of this resolution was ordered given to the last named holders, and appellee received such notice on October 28, 1936, whereupon it set up on its books and, since that time, has carried on its accounts as a contingent liability the sum of $10,000 with interest [776]*776at three per cent from May 12, 1936, to protect itself and its possible responsibilities to its customers who purchased the warrants.

On January 9, 1937, appellee’s original bill of complaint was filed, and on March 25, 1937, its amended bill was filed. Appellants filed their motion to dismiss the amended bill on April 28, 1937. On July 8, 1937, before the motion to dismiss was heard, the Board passed a resolution purporting to correct the record of its minutes of May 7, 1936, to show that it had accepted Stull’s proposition to sell the bonds for the Board, _rather than to buy them from the Board.3 On July 12, 1937, upon hearing, the court overruled appellants’ motion to dismiss, and issued an order temporarily restraining appellants from doing any act affecting the validity or enforceability of the warrants involved, conditioned upon appellee filing a bond in a specified amount, which bond was filed and approved. On August 2, 1937, appellants filed their amended answer. Later the bill was amended by substituting several new members of the Board as parties; and still later, on June 6, 1938, it was supplemented by inserting the Board’s record of July 8, 1937, in which it purported to correct its minutes with respect to Stull’s proposition and its acceptance. On the same day appellants’ amended answer of August 2, 1938, was ordered to stand as their answer to the complaint as amended and supplemented.

The findings of fact constitute a full recital of the evidence, rather than ultimate facts, but, as there is only one factual dispute here, we have attempted to set it forth with those ultimate facts which bear upon the legal contentions raised.

It is first contended by appellants that the Board’s corrected record speaks the truth, and that Stull’s proposition was intended by him as an offer to sell the warrants for the Board which accepted it as such. Hence they say Stull merely acted as an agent for the Board in the sale of the warrants to appellee and that payment by it to Stull did not constitute payment to the Board, or the township treasurer. We think there is no merit in this contention. There is no ambiguity in the language of Stull’s proposition. It was a plain offer to buy the warrants at a certain price, and the Board just as plainly accepted it, as shown by their record. The transcript disclosed that the warrants had been delivered to the purchaser and paid for by him, it was signed by the officers of the Board and the township school treasurer, and was delivered to the Board’s attorneys for their opinion as to the validity of the issue. The warrants were delivered by the Board to Stull, who in turn delivered them, together with the opinion of approval, to appellee who paid for them.

Appellants rely upon three circumstances to support théir contention that [777]*777Stull acted merely as an agent for the Board in the sale of the warrants to appellee.

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Bluebook (online)
99 F.2d 773, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 2985, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rogers-tracy-inc-v-board-of-education-ca7-1938.