Louis v. Trustees of Brown Township

• Decision Date: 05 November 1883
• Citation: 109 U.S. 162,3 S.Ct. 92,27 L.Ed. 892
• Parties: LOUIS v. TRUSTEES OF BROWN TOWNSHIP, Delaware County, Ohio
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

109 U.S. 162

3 S.Ct. 92

27 L.Ed. 892

LOUIS v. TRUSTEES OF BROWN TOWNSHIP, Delaware County, Ohio.

November 5, 1883.

Geo. Hoadly, E. M. Johnson, and Edward Colston, for plaintiff in error.

C. H. Scribner, for defendant in error.

MILLER, J.

This is an action on bonds and interest coupons thereto attached, signed by the trustees of Brown township, payable to the Springfield, Mt. Vernon & Pittsburgh Railroad Company, or its assigns, on the first day of October, 1871, and dated April 20, 1853. The plaintiff says she is the owner and holder of the bonds and coupons, and in explanation of her title alleges that 'after execution and delivery of said note to said railway company as aforesaid, and in the year 1854, the said railroad company did indorse and deliver said note and the coupons thereto attached to Brown, Collins & Brown, and that said Browns, Collins & Brown afterwards indorsed and delivered said note and coupons to Richard B. Hopple, and Richard B. Hopple afterwards indorsed and delivered said note and coupons to the plaintiff, who now holds and owns the same.' The defendants for answer, among other matters, filed two pleas of a former adjudication, in which the bonds were declared to be void, and rely upon these in bar of the action.

The first of these pleas, called defense No. 3, sets out a suit by one Hiram Hipple, plaintiff, against the trustees of Brown township, Robert B. Hopple, and others, in which he alleges himself to be the owner of real estate incumbered by a mortgage to secure the payment of the bonds on which the present suit is brought, and that said defendants, among whom was the Richard B. Hopple from whom plaintiff in this suit purchased the bonds aforesaid, asserted a claim to his land on account of said mortgage. The plea further alleges that the holders of the bonds, among whom was Richard B. Hopple, filed their answer and cross-bill alleging the bonds and mortgage to be valid, and pray that the bonds and mortgage might be declared to be valid, and for a decree of foreclosure of the mortgage, and that in said cross-bill said Richard B. Hopple set up as the foundation of his prayer for relief, his ownership of the identical bonds now set forth in this action. In the suit on the mortgage, which was finally appealed to the supreme court of the state, Hopple and the other bondholders failed, and were adjudged to pay costs on the ground of the want of authority in the trustees of Brown township to issue the bonds. To this suit the trustees of Brown township and Richard B. Hopple and other bondholders were parties. The second plea sets forth an application by Richard B. Hopple, in his right as owner of these bonds, for a writ of mandamus from the supreme court of Ohio to compel the trustees of Brown township to levy a tax to pay the interest on said coupons. To the alternative writ the trustees answered, denying the validity of the bonds, and the court decided that the supposed bonds and coupons were issued without any legal authority, and without any authority to take stock in the railroad company to which they were delivered, and gave judgment for costs against said Hopple. The plea also avers that said bonds were not transferred to Annie Louis, plaintiff, until long after said bonds and coupons were due. To these pleas demurrers were filed, and the demurrers overruled, and plaintiff not desiring to reply or plead further, judgment was rendered for defendant. The error assigned by plaintiff is the overruling of these demurrers.

We think the court was right, upon the plainest principles of jurisprudence. The case is unembarrassed by the doctrine of bona fide purchaser of negotiable securities, because the bonds were overdue in the hands of Richard B. Hopple when the suit of Hipple against him and others to have them declared void was commenced; the bonds falling due October 1, 1871, and the suit commenced October 18th of that year, and the cross-bill, in which Hopple sought to enforce the bonds, was commenced April 2, 1872. The bonds were therefore past due, during the whole period of that litigation in which they were adjudged to be void in his hands.

As regards the action of mandamus, while the bonds were not overdue at the time of the judgment against Mr. Hopple, the plea expressly avers that they were overdue when plaintiff Louis became their owner, and as she alleges in her declaration that she bought them of Hopple, it follows that they remained in his hands from the date of the judgment on mandamus against him until they became past due. This follows, also, from the fact that he asserted ownership of them after they were due in the cross-bill to Hipple's suit. The plaintiff, therefore, holding under Hopple by a purchase made after the bonds were due, and after the judgment in which they were decided to be void in his hands, is bound by that judgment, unless something can be shown which takes the case out of the general rule. In the mandamus cas...