Western Union Telegraph Co. v. United States & Mexican Trust Co.

221 F. 545, 137 C.C.A. 113, 1915 U.S. App. LEXIS 1354
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedMarch 16, 1915
DocketNo. 4310
StatusPublished
Cited by39 cases

This text of 221 F. 545 (Western Union Telegraph Co. v. United States & Mexican Trust 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
Western Union Telegraph Co. v. United States & Mexican Trust Co., 221 F. 545, 137 C.C.A. 113, 1915 U.S. App. LEXIS 1354 (8th Cir. 1915).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). [1] The property of an insolvent railroad corporation in the custody of a court in a suit to foreclose a mortgage upon it is charged with a trust for the benefit, first, of the holders of preferential claims superior in equity to the lien of the mortgage; second, of the holders of the lien of the mortgage and of other such liens in their order of priority; third, of the unsecured or general creditors of the mortgagor; and, fourth, of its stockholders. Any plan or scheme threatened or executed whereby the holders of the bonds secured by the mortgage and the stockholders secure, or intend or undertake to secure, to the stockholders, by contract, foreclosure sale, or other device, an equal or a greater benefit from the property than is thereby secured to, or offered to and rejected by, the general creditors, is such a breach or threatened breach of trust as entitles any complaining creditor to relief in a court of equity. A purchase through a foreclosure sale, or otherwise, of the. property of an insolvent corporation by a new corporation, pursuant to a plan or scheme of the bondholders and stockholders of the insolvent company, whereby the stockholders thereof derive, by receipt [550]*550of stock or bonds of the new company, or otherwise, benefits equal to or greater than those received by, or openly offered to and rejected by, its general creditors, is fraudulent in law as to the latter, and renders the new corporation and the property it purchased at such sale liable for the claims of such creditors against the old company, at least to the extent of the value of the interest secured by the stockholders of the old company in excess of the value of the interest secured by, or openly offered to and rejected by, the unsecured creditors. Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Boyd, 177 Fed. 804, 101 C. C. A. 18; Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Boyd, 228 U. S. 482, 502, 504, 33 Sup. Ct. 554, 57 L. Ed. 931; Louisville Trust Co. v. Louisville, etc., Ry. Co., 174 U. S. 674, 683, 684, 19 Sup. Ct. 827, 43 L. Ed. 1130; Central Improvement Co. v. Cambria Steel Co., 210 Fed. 696, 701, 702, 127 C. C. A. 184, 189, 190.

[2] In the portions of the intervening petition of the telegraph company stricken out by the court below may be found allegations of facts amply sufficient to constitute a good cause of action for equitable relief from an impending breach of the trust under which the property of the railway company was held to the detriment of that company under these established principles of equity jurisprudence. When this petition was filed, and when these portions of it were stricken from it, the court below had jurisdiction of the railway company, the trust company, the telegraph company, and exclusive jurisdiction of the property of the railway company. Only through the court below could the telegraph company enforce its lien upon and its trust in that property, because no other court could take the property from its custody and jurisdiction for that purpose. Hence, laying aside the other alleged grounds of equitable relief set forth in the portions of the petition excised, which may be more wisely and satisfactorily considered after, at a hearing, the relevant facts have been definitely ascertained, the averments of this cause of action invoked the undoubted power1 and duty of that court to hear and determine the issues tendered thereby on their merits, a power and duty which it might not lawfully renounce or avoid; for “the courts of the United States are bound to proceed to judgment, and to afford redress to suitors before them in every case to which their jurisdiction extends. They cannot abdicate their authority or duty in any case in favor of another jurisdiction.” Hyde v. Stone, 20 How. 170, 175 (15 L. Ed. 874); Barber Asphalt Paving Co. v. Morris, 132 Fed. 945, 950, 952, 66 C. C. A. 55, 59, 60, 67 L. R. A. 761. The stricken portions of the intervening petition, therefore, should not have been removed therefrom; but the parties in interest in the foreclosure suit should have been permitted to answer them, and the issues so framed should have been heard and adjudged upon evidence of the facts.

Objections to the consideration of the question which has been discussed were made by the trust company on the following grounds: First, that no exception was taken to the order striking out portions of the intervening petition, and cases were cited to the effect that where rulings are made by a master or an examiner on motions before him, or upon the admission or rejection of testimony, those rulings must be presented to and ruled by the trial court, and exceptions must be [551]*551taken to the. latter rulings in order to insure a review thereof by the appellate court, because the latter court reviews the rulings of the court below only, and not those of the master or examiner, which the lower court has not.passed upon. Ottumwa Box Car Loader Co. v. Christy Box Car Loader Co., 215 Fed. 362, 131 C. C. A. 504; Gorham Mfg. Co. v. Emery-Bird-Thayer Dry Goods Co., 104 Fed. 243, 244, 43 C. C. A. 511; White v. Wansey, 116 Fed. 345, 347, 53 C. C. A. 634; Kalamazoo Railway Supply Co. v. Duff Mfg. Co., 113 Fed. 264, 51 C. C. A. 221. But these decisions do not rule the question here under con-side,ration, because this is a proceeding in equity, the appeal from the final order on the telegraph company’s petition made on June 27, 1914, which allowed that company a general claim for $1,280.72 and denied it all other relief, brought to this court without bill of exceptions the entire record regarding the telegraph company’s claim, that record disclosed the fact that the court below by an interlocutory order had stricken out the portions of the petition here in question, and no objection or exception was required to apprise this court that that ruling was not made at the request of or with the consent of the telegraph company, or to enable it to review such an order. Western Electric Co. v. Williams-Abbott Elec. Co., 108 Fed. 952, 957, 48 C. C. A. 159, 164; Elder v. McClaskey, 70 Fed. 529, 555, 556, 558, 17 C. C. A. 251, 278, 279, 280; Blythe Co. v. Hinckley, 111 Fed. 827, 837, 49 C. C. A. 647, 657.

When a final order or decree is made in a proceeding in equity all the preceding interlocutory orders and decrees relative to the matters in controversy between the parties to the final order remain under the control and subject to the revision of the court, and upon an appeal from the final order or decree every interlocutory order affecting the rights of the parties regarding the matters in question between them is subject to review in the appellate court and may be heard and decided at the same time. Perkins v. Fourniquet, 47 U. S. 206, 208, 12 L. Ed. 406; Forgay v. Conrad, 6 How. 201, 204, 205, 12 L. Ed. 404: Celluloid Mfg. Co. v. Cellonite Mfg. Co. (C. C.) 40 Fed. 476, 478; Pittsburgh. C. & St. Louis Ry. Co. v. Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., 61 Fed. 705, 708, 10 C. C. A. 20; N. K. Fairbanks Co. v. Windsor, 124 Fed. 200, 202, 61 C. C. A. 233.

The' second ground of objection was that the court below never granted permission to the telegraph company to file an amended petition Injecting into the excised petition the parts stricken from it. But no such ground was necessary to a review of the excising order.

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Bluebook (online)
221 F. 545, 137 C.C.A. 113, 1915 U.S. App. LEXIS 1354, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/western-union-telegraph-co-v-united-states-mexican-trust-co-ca8-1915.