County of Dakota v. Glidden

• Decision Date: 26 January 1885
• Citation: 5 S.Ct. 428,28 L.Ed. 981,113 U.S. 222
• Parties: COUNTY OF DAKOTA v. GLIDDEN
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

113 U.S. 222

5 S.Ct. 428

28 L.Ed. 981

COUNTY OF DAKOTA v. GLIDDEN.

January 26, 1885.

J. M. Woolworth, R. P. Ranney, and A. P. Hodges, for defendant in error.

A. J. Poppleton and John M. Thurston, for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 223 intentionally omitted]

MILLER, J.

This case comes before us on a motion to dismiss the writ of error. The ground of this motion is that since the judgment was rendered, which plaintiff in error now seeks to reverse, the matter in controversy has been the subject of compromise between the parties to the litigation, which is in full force and binding on plaintiff and defendant, and which leaves nothing of the controversy presented by the present record to be decided. The evidence of this compromise is not found in the record of the case in the circuit court, nor in any proceedings in that court, and it is argued against the motion to dismiss that it cannot, for that reason, be considered in this court. It consists of duly-certified transcripts of proceedings of the board of commissioners of Dakota county, who are the authorized representatives of that county in all its financial mat- ters, of receipts of the parties or their attorneys, and of affidavits of persons engaged in the transaction. These are undisputed on the other side, either by contradictory testimony or by the brief of counsel who appear to oppose this motion. They leave no doubt of the fact, if it is competent for this court to consider them, that shortly after the judgment against the county in favor of Glidden was rendered, the parties entered into negotiations to settle the controversy, which, after due deliberation and several formal meetings of the board of commissioners, resulted in such settlement. The judgment in the case was rendered on certain coupons for interest due on bonds issued by said county to aid in constructing railroads. These bonds bore interest at the rate of 10 per cent. per annum, and became due in the year 1896. By the new agreement the county took up the bonds and the coupons on which judgment was rendered, and issued new bonds bearing 6 per cent. interest, the principal payable in the year 1902. These new bonds were delivered to plaintiff and accepted by him in satisfaction of his judgment and of his old bonds, and these latter were delivered by him to the county authorities and destroyed by burning.

There can be no question that a debtor against whom a judgment for money is recovered, may pay that judgment, and bring a writ of error to reverse it, and if reversed can recover back his money. And a defendant in an action of ejectment may bring a writ of error, and, failing to give a supersedeas bond, may submit to the judgment by giving possession of the land, which he can recover, if he reverses the judgment, by means of a writ of restitution. In both these cases the defendant has merely submitted to perform the judgment of the court, and has not thereby lost his right to seek a reversal of that judgment by writ of error or appeal. And so, if, in the present case, the county had paid the judgment in money, or had levied a tax to raise the money, or had in any other way satisfied that judgment without changing the rights of the parties in any other respect, its right to prosecute this writ of error would have remained unaffected. But what was done was a very different thing from that. A new agreement, on sufficient consideration, was made, by which the judgment itself, the coupons on which it was recovered, and the bonds of which these coupons were a part, were all surrendered and destroyed, and other bonds and other coupons were accepted in their place, payable at a more distant date and with a lower rate of interest, with the effect of extinguishing the judgment now sought to be reversed, so that the...