Sheffield & B. Coal, Iron & Railway Co. v. Newman

77 F. 787, 23 C.C.A. 459, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2283
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJune 15, 1896
DocketNo. 473
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 77 F. 787 (Sheffield & B. Coal, Iron & Railway Co. v. Newman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sheffield & B. Coal, Iron & Railway Co. v. Newman, 77 F. 787, 23 C.C.A. 459, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2283 (5th Cir. 1896).

Opinion

PARLANGE, District Judge

(concurring). The questions of pleading and practice raised by the demurrer do not appear to me to be tenable. The object of the supplemental bill was to show that liens which, while they existed, were obstacles in the way of Newman’s full satisfaction, had been removed since the filing of the original bill. [791]*791Story, Eq. Pl. § 346; Beach, Eq. Prac. § 499. Chancellor Walworth, in Candler v. Pettit, 1 Paige, 168, uses (lie following language:

“If the complainant had no ground for the proceeding originally, ho should file a new bill, showing a case which will then entitle him to equitable relief. But. if his original bill was sufficient to entitle him to one kind of relief, and facts subsequently occur which entitle him io other and more extensive relief, he may have such relief by selling out such new matter in the form of a supplemental bill.”

Furthermore, it has been held that the granting of leave to file a supplemental bill, or to make any amendment, is discretionary with the trial court. Beach, Eq. Prac. § 503. See, also, Marco v. Hicklin, 15 U. S. App. 55, 6 C. C. A. 10, and 56 Fed. 549.

The necessary parties, so far as the record shows, have all been impleaded. The demurrer does not name the parties which the defendants claim should have been joined. The fifty-second and fifty-third equity rules require that the fact that: parties in interest: are not before the court be set up by plea or answer. If the defect of parties appears on the face of the bill, objection may be raised by demurrer; but, if the defect is not apparent, a defendant must: set up the defect by plea or answer, pointing out: and naming the persons who ought to be made parties, and giving the reasons therefor. Carey v. Brown, 92 U. S. 171; Greenleaf v. Queen, 1 Pet. 138; Segee v. Thomas, 3 Blatchf. 11, Fed. Cas. No. 12,633; Florence Sewing Mach. Co. v. Singer Manuf’g Co., 8 Blatchf. 113, Fed. Cas. No. 4.884; U. S. v. Gillespie, 6 Fed. 803.

In my opinion, there can be no room for doubt that the original decree of foreclosure and the subsequent confirmation of the sale imposed on the purchasers, Neely and Hill, the obligation to satisfy the mechanic’s lien and the certificates. The decree distinctly provided that the property be sold “subject to all outstanding contractors’, mechanics’, vendors’, or other liens,” prior in rank to the mortgages, “and expressly subject to the receiver’s certificates authorized to be issued by Jacob G. Chamberlain,’ receiver, to an amount not exceeding $150,000.” The decree further provided that:

“The purchasers of said property shall lake the same upon the express condition Hurt be or they will pay off and satisfy any and all claims now pending and undetermined in this court prior to the appointment of the receiver herein, and during the receivership; and also upon the express condition that said purchaser or purchasers will pay off, discharge, and satisfy all debts, claims, or demands, of whatever nature, which have been or may be hereafter incurred by said Jacob,G. Chamberlain, receiver, which have not been or may not hereafter be paid by said Jacob G. Chamberlain.”

The order of confirmation provided that;

“Said purchasers take said property, and that it be recited in said deeds' that they so take said property, subject to, and that said purchasers or their assigns assume and pay off, any and all debts, claims, and demands, of whatever nature, now ponding and undetermined in this court, which have been or may be allowed and adjudged by this court as prior in rank to any right secured by either of said mortgages.”

There are authorities which hold that when a purchaser takes property burdened with an incumbrance, retaining out of the purchase price the amount necessary to remove the incumbrance, he will be held to have assumed the incumbrance. Boone, Mortg. § 125; [792]*792Jewett v. Draper, 6 Allen, 434; Comstock v. Hitt, 37 Ill. 542; Thayer v. Torrey, 37 N. J. Law, 339. And some authorities hold that when a purchaser takes title subject to a mortgage, but without an assumption of the debt, the law will consider that he has deducted the amount of the mortgage from the price, as a trust fund remaining in his hands. See Bunch v. Grave, 12 N. E. 514, 111 Ind. 351. Hut the instant case is not a case of implied assumption; this is a case in which an express and unambiguous condition of the sale was that the purchasers should assume, pay off, and satisfy all prior incumbrances and claims.

Appellants’ counsel urge that, as the decree provided for the sale of the property in two lots or parcels, it would be unjust to hold the two purchasers severally liable for the whole indebtedness. The answer to this plea is that the decree provided, in the interest of the purchasers, that they should assume and pay the certificates ratably as each parcel of property had benefited from the certificates, and Neely, Hill and Cole have, in a manner which was doubtless satisfactory to themselves.' satisfied the claims of Gordon, Strobel & Laureau and the Woodson certificates. If one of the purchasers should be made to pay more than his proportion of the indebtedness, he would have his recourse against the others.

Appellants’ counsel have strenuously pressed the claim that the sale to satisfy the Woodson certificates, and the subsequent sale to satisfy the mechanic’s lien, freed the property from incumbrances, qnd that, at the time appellee instituted his suit, he had no lien. Even if the effect of the sale under the superior mechanic’s lien was to wipe out the lien of the certificates, so that a stranger would have taken the property free from the latter lien, still'Neely and his associates cannot be allowed, as against appellee, to derive advantage from their neglect to perform the obligation to pay all claims, which they had assumed when they purchased under the decree of foreclosure. Their legal duty was to pay the certificates. Their failure to comply with the express condition of their purchase was the cause, of the subsequent sales. Under such circumstances, equity considers the reacquisition by them as an equitable redemption, for the benefit of the holders of outstanding claims. “Equity looks upon that as done which ought to have been done.” Justice Story, in his work on Equity Jurisprudence (section 63g), said that the true meaning of the maxim just quoted is that:

“Equity will treat the subject-matter, as to collateral consequences and incidents, in the same manner as if the iinal acts, contemplated by the parties, had been executed exactly as they ought to have, been, not as the parties might have executed them. * * * All agreements are considered as performed which are made for a valuable consideration, in favor of persons entitled to insist upon their performance. They are-to be considered as done at the time when, according to the tenor thereof, they ought to have been performed. They are also deemed to have the same consequences attached to them; so that one party, or his privies, shall not derive benefit by his laches or neglect; and the other party, for whose profit the contract was designed, or his privies, shall not suffer thereby.”

Justice Story also said (Eq. Jur. § 410):

“It it wholly immaterial of what nature the equity is, whether it is a lien or an Incumbrance or a trust or other claim; for a bona fide purchase of an estate, for a [793]

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Bluebook (online)
77 F. 787, 23 C.C.A. 459, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2283, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sheffield-b-coal-iron-railway-co-v-newman-ca5-1896.