Whiteley v. Central Trust Co. of New York

76 F. 74, 34 L.R.A. 303, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2101
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJuly 8, 1896
DocketNo. 401
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 76 F. 74 (Whiteley v. Central Trust Co. of New York) 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
Whiteley v. Central Trust Co. of New York, 76 F. 74, 34 L.R.A. 303, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2101 (6th Cir. 1896).

Opinion

LURTON, Circuit Judge.

W. E. Whiteley, at the request of the Louisville, St. Louis & Texas Railway Company, became its surety upon a supersedeas bond executed November 5, 1892. The railway company had been sued in a circuit court of Kentucky in an action at law for damages for breach of covenants contained in a conveyance under which it had acquired a right of way through the lands of one E. P. Taylor, situated in Daveiss county, Ky. The circuit court rendered judgment against the railway company for the sum of $6,406.55, with costs and interest from October 29, 1892.

In order to obtain a review of this judgment in the Kentucky court of appeals, an appeal was prayed and allowed, and a super-sedeas bond executed, on which Whiteley became bound as surety. This judgment was affirmed by the court of appeals in December, 1894. 28 S. W. 666. The railway company, pending the appeal, became insolvent, and passed into the control and management of a receiver appointed by the United States circuit court for the district of Kentucky, under proceedings instituted in that court by general creditors. Subsequently two foreclosure bills were filed by the Central Trust Company of New York, as trustee under two mortgages covering the entire road and its equipment, and the former receivership was extended to these suits. By reason of this sub[75]*75sequent Insolvency, WMteley, as surety, lias been obliged to pay In discharge of his liability $8,158.10. lie has intervened in the foreclosure suits mentioned, and claims that the circumstances are such as to entitle him to payment out of the corpus of the mortgaged property in preference to the mortgagees. The decree of the circuit court gave him a priority as to a large part of Ms claim, on the theory that the debt paid was purchase money for land, and therefore a prior equitable lien. From this decree both Whiteley and Ike Central Trust Company have perfected appeals.

Two distinct theories have been advanced by counsel for Whiteley as furnishing ground upon which priority of payment should be accorded his claim. The first is that Ms act as a surety on the supersedeas bond operated to keep the property together, and to keep the railroad as a going concern, and that the mortgagees were indirectly benefited, and should, therefore, be postponed until he has been paid. The second is that the covenants in the deed of conveyance of a right of way from Taylor to the railroad company constituted the consideration for the conveyance, and that the ‘judgment for damages for breach of those covenants fixes the money value thereof, and, although no express lien was retained, an equitable lien is implied, which must be discharged in preference to mortgages subsequently executed with record noi.ice of the existence of the covenants set out in the title of the company. We shall consider these questions in the order, stated. The case of Trust Co. v. Morrison, 325 U. S. 591 et seq., 8 Sup. Ct. 1004, is supposed to lend countenance to the first ground upon which this court is asked to give relief to the intervener. Both of the mortgages now being foreclosed were in existence when WMteley stepped forward and assumed the liability of a surety upon the supersedeas bond of the railway company. Both mortgages covered substantially the whole property of the mortgagor company, including its rights of way, depots, depot grounds, rolling stock, and equipments of every kind. But it is said that, under the law of Kentucky an execution might have been levied upon the equipment of the company, and, although such levy would have been subject to the prior mortgage liens, that still such a levy and execution sale would have greatly embarrassed and crippled the operations of the railway company as an active common carrier, and worked great detriment, directly and indirectly, to the mortgagees, as the substantial owners of the property. This is the principal equity wMch is supposed to bring this case within the logic of Trust Co. v. Morrison. The two cases may be assumed to present analogous features, so far as this equity is concerned. But here their identity is at an end. The judgment in Morrison’s favor was not rested alone upon the equity stated. A succession of equitable circumstances existed in that case, which unitedly were deemed strong enough to support; a decree in Ms favor. When Whiteley became surety on this super-sedeas bond, he did so at the request of an apparently solvent company, and presumably as a, matter of accommodation, and upon the personal credit of the company. When one becomes a surety under such circumstances, he is presumed to have trusted his prin[76]*76cipal, and not the property. In no state is this obvious principle more positively recognized than in the state of Kentucky. Johnson v. Morrison, 5 B. Mon. 107; Bank v. Rudy, 2 Bush, 329. In Morrison’s case he did not trust his principal, but took a chattel mortgage upon four engines. Another most significant circumstance upon which that judgment was rested is entirely absent from Whiteley’s -case. When Morrison stepped in and prevented a levy upon and sale of the railroad equipment, the railroad company had been long in default upon the interest on its mortgage debts. The mortgagees had an existing right to take possession of the mortgaged property, or to have secured the appointment of a receiver. They had done neither, but had suffered the railroad company to continue in the possession and management of its property. When a levy upon equipment was threatened, and the operation of the railway imperiled, the mortgagees, though legally authorized to prevent such a result, stood by and did nothing, and saw Morrison intervene, and by his act keep the property together, and keep the railroad in operation. In the case before us, the railroad company was not in default as to its interest, and was rightfully and legally in the complete control and management of its property. The mortgagees bad no right to interfere with that management, and no right of foreclosure. This furnishes a marked distinction between the two cases.

But a circumstance of greater significance than any yet mentioned lies in the fact that, after a receiver had been appointed for the company, in whose behalf Morrison became surety, the receiver applied to the court for permission to protect Morrison and others, who had become sureties under like circumstances, by paying out of current income the debts upon which they were bound. An order was accordingly made allowing the receiver "to pay out of any money coming to his hands as such .receiver, over and above expenses of operation and repairs,” all such claims as had been brought to the attention of the court, including the claim upon which Morrison was liable. The mortgagees, though parties, made no objection to this order. Their mortgages were foreclosed, and the property bought in by them, under a decree which obligated them to pay all intervening claims which the court should deem entitled to priority out of the property or assets of the company. The receiver did not pay off this Morrison claim upon the pretense that the income was insufficient. The court, however, found that this was untrue. That the income had been used in the purchase of “new property, real estate, and rolling stock,” and that this property, into which income had been diverted, had passed into the hands of the mortgagee purchasers. The income thus diverted to the benefit of the mortgagees was held to be presumably sufficient to have indemnified Morrison, and he therefore entitled to be paid out of the corpus of the property which had been covered by the mortgages and bought in by the mortgagees, hfo such circumstance exists in "Whiteley’s case.

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Bluebook (online)
76 F. 74, 34 L.R.A. 303, 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2101, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whiteley-v-central-trust-co-of-new-york-ca6-1896.