Bofinger v. Tuyes

• Decision Date: 31 January 1887
• Parties: BOFINGER and others, Copartners, etc., v. TUYES and others. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

120 U.S. 198

7 S.Ct. 529

30 L.Ed. 649

BOFINGER and others, Copartners, etc., v. TUYES and others.¹

January 31, 1887.

O. B. Sansum, for plaintiffs in error.

R. H. Browne, C. B. Singleton, and Chas. E. Schmidt, for defendants in error.

MATTHEWS, J.

In a maritime cause of collision arising on the waters of the Mississippi river, the owners of the steam-boat Sabine filed their libel in the district court of the United States for the Eastern district of Louisiana against the steam-boat Richmond, to recover damages for the loss alleged to have been occasioned by the fault of the latter. The owners and claimants of the Richmond, being the plaintiffs in error in this cause, defended against the libel filed by the owners of the Sabine, and also filed a cross-libel, alleging damage to the Richmond in the collision caused by the fault of the Sabine, and claiming damages therefor. A decree was rendered in this cause June 5, 1873, against the steam-boat Sabine and her owners, Sarah C. Shirley, R. F. Fuller, and America B. Selby, and Nathaniel C. e lby, her husband, together with Alfred Moulton, Charles Cavaroc, Jules Tuyes, and Achille Chiapella, the four last named being sureties for the owners of the Sabine in a bond for the sum of $8,000, conditioned to pay any damages adjudged in favor of the owners of the Richmond as cross-libelants in the suit, which the libelants had been required by the court to give. The amount of the decree against the owners of the Sabine, as principals, was $9,750 damages, besides costs, and against each of the four named surities the sum of $2,000, that being the amount limited in the obligation as the several liability of each. From this decree all the parties appealed to the circuit court of the United States for the Eastern district of Louisiana. For the purpose of perfecting the appeal, Fuller, Moulton, Cavaroc, Tuyes, and Chiapella executed and filed an appeal-bond in the sum of $20,000, the condition of which was that, if they should prosecute their appeal to effect, and answer all damages and costs, and satisfy whatever judgment might be rendered against them, if they failed to make their appeal good, the obligation should be void; and on this bond J. W. Hincks and Pierre S. Wiltz, two of the defendants in error, were sureties, each in the sum of $5,000. The cause was heard on this appeal in the circuit court on the eleventh of March, 1876, when a decree was rendered in the cause, dismissing the original libel, maintaining the cross-libel, and condemning the original libelants, the owners of the steam-boat Sabine, together with their sureties in the original bond of $8,000, viz., Moulton, Cavaroc, Tuyes, and Chiapella, to pay to the owners of the steam-boat Richmond, as damages, the sum of $7,392,60, with costs. The decree of the circuit court as against Moulton, Cavaroc, Tuyes, and Chiapella, sureties as aforesaid, was several as against each in the sum of $2,000, that being the amount for which they respectively bound themselves. From this decree of the circuit court the owners of the steam-boat Sabine, the original libelants, together with the Merchants' Mutual Insurance Company, the Mechanics' & Traders' Insurance Company, the Factors' & Traders' Insurance Company, the New Orleans Mutual Insurance Company, the Sun Mutual Insurance Company, the New Orleans Insurance Association, the Crescent Mutual Insurance Company, and the Commercial Insurance Company, all of which insurance companies were libelants and intervenors in certain other similar causes consolidated with that of the original libel of the owners of the Sabine against the Richmond, joined in an appeal to the supreme court of the United States from the several decrees rendered in the consolidated causes, including that in which the present defendants in error were parties. The bond given for the prosecution of that appeal to the supreme court was in the sum of $500, and did not operate as a supersedeas. The defendants in error in this cause were not parties to this appeal. The appeal from the decree of the circuit court was heard at the October term, 1880, of the supreme court, when it was ordered and decreed that the decree of the circuit court appealed from should be and the same was affirmed. Subsequently an execution was issued on the decree of the circuit court, running against Moulton, Cavaroc, Tuyes, and Chiapella, for the sum of $7,292.60, with interest at 5 per cent. per annum from March 11, 1876, and costs. Motions were made on May 3, 1881, on behalf of Moulton and Tuyes, defendants in that execution, to quash the same on the ground that the said decree, as against each of the said sureties, had been satisfied and discharged. These motions came on to be heard June 16, 1881, on consideration whereof they were allowed, and the writ of fieri facias quashed, and the marshal ordered to desist from any further proceedings thereunder. The plaintiffs in error thereafter, on the seventh of March, 1882, being the owners of the steam-boat Richmond, or their representatives, commenced this action against the defed ants in error, as parties to the appeal-bond given for the prosecution of the appeal from the original decree of the district court to the circuit court. The defendants rely upon two defenses: (1) That the matters in controversy were finally adjudged in their favor by the circuit court on the motion to quash the execution issued against them on its decree, so as to constitute an estoppel upon the principle of res judicata; (2) that the decrees of the circuit court against them, respectively, were discharged by payments made and accepted in full satisfaction thereof, by way of compromise, prior to the appeal taken by the other parties to the supreme court of the United States. The cause came on to be heard before the circuit court on May 29, 1883, when the parties, having duly waived the intervention of a jury, submitted the cause to the court; on consideration whereof the court rendered judgment in favor of the defendants. The object of the present writ of error is to reverse that judgment.

It appears from the bill of exceptions taken on the trial that the plaintiffs below, to maintain the issues on their part, put in as evidence in said cause the appeal-bond, decree, and final judgment, and the mandate of the supreme court of the United States, as the same are described and referred to in the plaintiffs' petition, and also the amount of costs taxed in the cause, amounting to the sum of $1,593.45, and rested their case. Thereupon the defendants, to maintain the issues on their part, put in evidence, among other matters, the following: (1) The decree rendered by the district court against the owners of the Sabine in favor of the cross-libelants, the owners of the Richmond, showing the amount decreed against the sureties on the bond of $8,000 to be the sum of $2,000 each. (2) The decree of the circuit court in the same cause in the amount of $7,392.60 in solido against the owners of the steamer Sabine, and against the sureties on the original bond for $8,000 in the...