Cicotte v. Anciaux

• Citation: 53 Mich. 227,18 N.W. 793
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Decision Date: 09 April 1884
• Parties: CICOTTE v. ANCIAUX and others.

18 N.W. 793

53 Mich. 227

CICOTTE v. ANCIAUX and others.

Supreme Court of Michigan

April 9, 1884

A corporation is a necessary party to the record, in an action brought by one of its members for the purpose of setting aside a conveyance executed in its name.

A court of equity can never interfere with the management of the affairs of a corporation by its own elected officers, unless they exceed their discretion or are guilty of fraud.

The bill of complaint adversely criticised on divers accounts and dismissed.

Appeal from Wayne.

H.F. Brownson, Geo. H. Hopkins, and F.A. Baker for defendants.

CAMPBELL J.

Complainant who in his bill claims to be a trustee and parishioner of Ste. Anne's church, Detroit, files the bill in this cause to obtain the rescission of a deed made in the name of the corporation of that church to James Caplis, who conveyed to John J. Bagley, now deceased, of a parcel of land heretofore claimed and occupied by the corporation, between Larned and Congress streets, in the city of Detroit, extending from Randolph street westward 250 feet. The grounds relied on are that the land was not subject to sale; that it was not sold by the action of a sufficient number of trustees; and that the terms of the sale were not as good as might have been obtained. The parties defendant are the curate or rector, and George W. Van Dyke, Antoine Morass, and Gregory Campau, claiming to be trustees, and James Caplis and the heirs of Gov. Bagley, as purchasers. Caplis demurred and the bill was dismissed.

The bill, which was filed August 17, 1882, is not sworn to, and contains no full statement or exhibit of most of the important documents on which the claim to relief is based. Its imperfections of this kind are so serious that it is difficult to discuss several of the questions which were somewhat touched on during the argument, and we shall only refer to such matters as seem to be essential.

The corporation known as the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church of Ste. Anne, of Detroit, is alleged to have filed the proper articles to complete its corporate rights under "An act concerning religious societies," passed April 3, 1807. Section 2 of that act, recognizing the existence of the church, and its ownership of property provided for its adopting such regulations as it should see fit for the management of its estates and temporalities, and choosing such persons as it should think proper, who should assume the style and title designated, and that the articles should be properly certified and recorded, and that the body corporate should become seized of all the present property, temporalities, and estate of the church. A previous section had provided that trustees might take and alien any kind of property except slaves. In accordance with this act, the church, by a proper article, provided that the affairs should be managed, as they state had already been done from time immemorial, by the curate, (as the bill renders the phrase from the original,) and four curators or trustees, chosen by the "ancient trustees," and that three trustees, or the curate and two trustees, should be a quorum to transact business. Enough appears to show what is historically familiar, that this is an ancient French parish, organized according to the methods of the Gallican church, with elected lay trustees as managers of its temporalities. The treaty of Paris in 1763 recognized all these old organizations as entitled to protection, and the act of 1807 was plainly designed to enable the parish to obtain record evidence of its corporate constitution under the American local government. The parish has been since affirmatively recognized by congress, by the treaty-making power, and by the state as well as territorial legislatures, as owning land in Detroit and elsewhere. See St. at Large, (U.S.) vol. 7, p.

166; 6 St. at Large, 315, (where reference is made to the deed from the governor and judges set forth in the bill;) 3 Terr.Laws, 977; Sess.Laws 1841, p. 136. By section 2 of the schedule of the present constitution it was provided that all rights of bodies corporate should continue.

The bill states that on the eleventh day of January, 1817, the governor and judges conveyed to the corporation, among other lands, 16 lots specified in section 1, with a proviso that on four of them no building should be put up to prevent access through Randolph street to the rear of the city until 1831, unless another communication should be opened. Permission was also given to use the interior triangle in said section for building a church thereon, provided it should be built within a time specified, but not granting a fee. The next year the governor and judges made a further grant of the use of this triangle and adjoining open space so long as the church should be used for public worship. In 1834 the governor and judges made a deed granting to this corporation and its successors, forever, the use of the interior and central triangle of section 1, "to the end that they may from time to time, as they shall deem necessary, erect thereon any buildings or improvements suitable for ecclesiastical, literary, or benevolent purposes." This being a grant of an estate in fee-simple, with no conditions or reservations, and no clauses of forfeiture, appears, so far as the bill shows, to have vested all the title that the governor and judges could grant in the corporation. And it is proper here to say that the bill contains no averment whatever which shows directly where or how great this interior triangle is, or whether the land now in controversy is a part of it. Neither does the bill show the consideration of any of these deeds, and whether they were given as gratuities, purchases, or in exchange for the other property rights of the corporation in the old town, concerning which the governor and judges had plenary power of settlement. The act of congress of 1824 refers to this deed of January 11, 1817, as conveying land in another part of the city which was within the old picket lines, where presumptively the old possessions would be preserved in their substance. This court has no judicial knowledge of the contents of plats or of the location of Detroit lands, except as identified or affected by legislative or other public action, and there can be no presumption against the lawful character of the conveyances of the governor and judges.

It was held in People v. Jones, 6 Mich. 176, that there was nothing in the action of the governor and judges in platting various parts of the city to prevent them from changing the plan, as they frequently did in places, or dealing with parcels of property, unless in violation of some established and vested rights which were beyond their reach. It appears affirmatively that no action was ever had during the existence of the territory to fix any public easement in any portion of this grant which would prevent them from disposing of it, as they did dispose of it, for the use of this corporation. And in Hinchman v. Detroit, 9 Mich. 103, the power of the city of Detroit conferred by its charter to vacate public grounds was held applicable to one of the public squares laid out by the governor and judges, and not exempted as some other of those grounds have been from city interference. And in Cooper v. Detroit, 42 Mich. 584, S.C. 4 N.W. 262, where the city vacated part of a street in this same vicinity and used it for proprietary purposes, it was held such use was an adverse possession against any public rights and protected by lapse of time against resumption.

Assuming (what, as already shown, does not appear in any distinct way in the bill) that the interior triangle covers part of the land in controversy in this suit, it further appears that in 1837 the city of Detroit desired to change this part of the plan of the section by running Congress street and Randolph street so as to make a quadrangular block, which required the appropriation of a large part of the lots designated in the grant as conveyed, which would convert into public streets an amount of their undisputed private property equivalent to a large part, if not to all, of the space of the interior triangle, and leaving a considerable number of fractional lots...