Vicksburg & Meridian Railroad v. McCutchen

52 Miss. 645
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 15, 1876
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 52 Miss. 645 (Vicksburg & Meridian Railroad v. McCutchen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vicksburg & Meridian Railroad v. McCutchen, 52 Miss. 645 (Mich. 1876).

Opinion

Campbell, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

Appellee exhibited his bill, in the chancery court of Warren county, against appellant, showing that on the 14th December, 1870, he obtained in the circuit court of said county a judgment against appellant for $1,177.49, and had execution issued on it, which was returned “ nulla bona,” and that said judgment remained unsatisfied; that appellant, on the 25th March, 1857, executed a mortgage on -its road-bed, depots, lots, shops, locomotives, cars, furniture, and equipments, then’had or thereafter to be acquired, and its franchises, to secure certain bonds, to mature 1st January, 1869, and at the same time appellant executed a mortgage on all the land granted to it by an act of the legislature of Mississippi, ajqmoved 2d February, 1857, to secure part of the bonds mentioned in said first mortgage; that on the same day another mortgage was executed by appellant to other persons and to secure other bonds, and it conveyed .the same subject-matter as described in said other mortgages, and on the 15th August, 1859, appellant executed another mortgage on the same things, to secure specified bonds that on the 15th of March, 1866, appellant executed to trustees a deed by which it conveyed, subject to said several mortgages, to said trustees the railroad of appellant as then existing, or as it might be, and everything else it possessed or might acquire, including its franchises and its income and whatever [648]*648should inure or accrue to it in future. This conveyance was to secure $3,000,000 of bonds issued by appellant at the date of said deed and to mature in the year 1890. The prayer of the bill is for a decree for sale of the equity of redemption of the appellant in the subject-matter of said conveyances, “ subject to all the liens, priorities, and incumbrances herein-before described,” and for a writ of possession to place the purchaser in possession of the subject of his purchase. Upon this bill a summons was issued for appellant, and was executed by the sheriff of Warren county on the 31st December, 1872, by delivering a true copy of said writ to N. Gr. Bryson, secretary and treasurer of the said Vicksburg & Meridian Eail-road Company. The summons requires appearance on the first Monday in January, 1873, and counsel for appellant is in error in his criticism on it in this respect. The cause progressed regularly to a pro confesso and final decree in accordance with the prayer of the bill.

From this decree an appeal is prosecuted, and it is assigned as error, substantially, that the decree pro confesso is erroneous because appellant was not properly summoned, and that the final decree is erroneous because it directs an absolute sale of the equity of redemption of appellant, and the placing the purchaser of it in possession, whereas it is insisted that the remedy of complainant is by bill against the trustees of the deed of trust, and the company to pay the judgment out of the receipts of the company from the operation of the road. This bill was exhibited while the act entitled ‘ ‘ An act in relation to equity of redemption,” approved March 28, 1872, was in force. But for that act there would have been no necessity for the judgment creditor to resort to chancery. He could, have had execution levied on the equity of redemption of his judgment debtor, and caused it to be sold, and the purchaser would have acquired just the rights of the defendant in the execution. Code, § 2295. He would have been entitled to the possession of the railroad and all its property, real and personal, and the franchise of the corporation, subject to the [649]*649several incumbrances on them, and liable to tbe consequeuces of a breach of the condition of the conveyances creating those incumbrances. Code, § 2414.

The act cited above provides “ that the chancery court shall have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases when the equity of redemption is sought to be sold, and corporations shall have the same notice now provided for natural persons.” Acts of 1872, p. 53.

It is by virtue of the latter clause of the section quoted that it is claimed that § 703 of the Code, as to service of process on a corporation, was repealed, and a requirement made that directors of the company should be served with summons ; and it is insisted that service of the summons on the secretary •and treasurer of appellant was not sufficient to make the corporation a part}'' to the srdt, and therefore the decree pro confesso is erroneous. It is difficult to determine what is meant by the clause of the act under consideration. Whatever it is, we do not think it can be interpreted to repeal or modify § 703 of the Code, as to the manner of serving process •on corporations. § 2409 of Code.

The term ‘ ‘ notice ’ ’ does not apply to the service of process. 'It is more appropriate to publications to non-resident or unknown defendants. It may have been used to require notice to corporations in the same circumstances in which natural persons would be entitled to notice of a proceeding to subject an equity of redemption to sale, or the same length of time, or that corporations should be brought in by summons, when natural persons had to be brought in by that means, or that publication should alike apply to both. The provisions of the Code for service of process on corporations in suits against them remained in force, unaffected by the act of 28th March, 1872, and the summons in this case was properly served, and the decree pro confesso is not erroneous.

We proceed to the main question.

Is the final decree erroneous ?

Counsel insist that it is, because, they say, the equity of [650]*650redemption of appellant cannot be sold; that appellant, in 1866, prior to the judgment of appellee, executed a deed of trust to secure $3,000,000 of bonds to mature in 1890, and thereby conveyed its railroad and all its real and personal estate, and its rights and franchises of every sort, and pledged its income, and stipulated for the retention of possession of' the road and all appurtenances and appliances, for the performance of its obligation to pay interest semi-annually on the bonds and create a sinking fund by annual appropriations of' $30,000, after paying current expenses which are provided for in the deed of trust, and that to sell the equity of redemption of appellant in the railroad and other property and franchises, and disturb appellant’s possession, will be to injuriously affect the rights of bondholders who trusted to the arrangement secured by the deed of trust; and that, instead of this, the* judgment creditor should be required to exhibit his bill against the trustees in the deed of trust, and the railroad company to-obtain payment out of the receipts of the company. To deny that the equity of redemption of appellant in the railroad and other property conveyed by the deed of trust can be sold to-satisfy the judgment of appellee is to disregard the provisions of the statute, § 2295, and the act of March 28, 1872, which proceeds on the idea that an equity of redemption may be-sold, and, instead of permitting it to be sold as before under execution at law, necessitated resort to chancery. The effect of this act was to change the mode of subjecting an equity of' redemption, and not to impair any right of the creditor as* against it.

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Bluebook (online)
52 Miss. 645, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vicksburg-meridian-railroad-v-mccutchen-miss-1876.