Butler v. Eaton

• Decision Date: 25 May 1891
• Citation: 11 S.Ct. 985,141 U.S. 240,35 L.Ed. 713
• Parties: BUTLER v. EATON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

141 U.S. 240

11 S.Ct. 985

35 L.Ed. 713

BUTLER v. EATON.

May 25, 1891.

A. A. Ranney, for plaintiff in error.

J. H. Benton, Jr., for defendant in error.

BRADLEY, J.

This case is a sequel to the case of Bank v. Eaton, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 984, (just decided.) It was an action brought by the receiver of the Pacific National Bank of Boston against Mary J. Eaton to recover 100 per cent. of the amount of her capital stock in said bank, on her individual liability as a stockholder, under section 5151 of the Revised Statutes. The amount sued for was $8,000, and interest thereon, being $4,000, and interest for her original stock, and $4,000, and interest for her new stock. Her liability to pay the first sum was not disputed. She consented to be defaulted for that, and that judgment should be rendered against her. But she denied any liability by reason of the new stock, and claimed a set-off for the money she had paid on it on the ground that she only paid for stock which was to form part of an increased capital of $500,000, and no such increase was ever made. By a subsequent plea, puis darrein continuance, after specially setting forth the facts relating to said new stock, and denying her liability therefor, she pleaded in bar the judgment rendered in her favor in regard thereto by the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts on the 10th day of May, 1887, which we have just reversed. A jury was waived, and the cause was tried by the court upon an agreed statement of facts, including he record and judgment in the said action in the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts. The agreed statement of facts, with the exception of the said judgment, is precisely the same, mutatis mutandis, as in the case of Thayer v. Butler, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 987, (just decided,) and, so far as the case depends on said statement the same conclusion must be reached. Upon a hearing of the whole case, the circuit court gave judgment in favor of the receiver for the amount of the 40 shares of stock originally held by Miss Eaton, with the interest thereon, but not for the amount of the 40 shares of new stock. The ground of the judgment will appear by the following extract from the bill of exceptions: 'The plaintiff objected to the competency of the record of the case of Mary J. Eaton v. The Pacific National Bank, tried in the state court, and constituting a part of said agreed facts, contending that the same constituted no estoppel or bar in defense of this action. The court admitted it and plaintiff excepted, and his exception was allowed. The plaintiff contended, and asked the court to rule, that if the adjudication in the state court, as shown by the said record from the state court, was competent evidence, it was not of itself conclusive in this action, and did not operate as an estoppel or bar, and was only to be considered with the other facts agreed in the case. The plaintiff contended and asked the court to rule that, upon all the facts agreed as aforesaid, he was entitled to recover the assessment sued for upon the eighty shares of stock declared on. The court declined to so rule, and, being of the opinion that he was entitled to so recover, except for the said adjudication in the state court, he held that said adjudication was of itself conclusive as a bar to the recovery, so far as the forty shares of new stock in question were concerned, notwithstanding the issuing and pendency of a writ of error, and ordered judgment for the amount only of the assessment upon the forty shares of old stock not in dispute; that is to say, in the sum of $5,172. The plaintiff excepted to the ruling in so far as it precluded him from...