Coddington v. Railroad Company
| Decision Date | 01 October 1880 |
| Citation | 26 L.Ed. 400,103 U.S. 409 |
| Parties | CODDINGTON v. RAILROAD COMPANY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Florida.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. D. P. Holland for the appellant.
Mr. C. W. Jones, contra.
The allegations of the complainant's bill, which was dismissed on demurrer, show that prior to 1866 he was the owner of two hundred and fifty-two first-mortgage bonds of the defendant, the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad Company, with several overdue coupons of interest attached; that in 1866 the president of the company induced him to exchange these coupons for certificates of its preferred stock; that he afterwards bought of other persons similar certificates, which had, in like manner been received in exchange for unpaid coupons, so that in 1869 he was the owner of $64,085 of these certificates; and that the surrender of the coupons in exchange for the certificates was a fraud practised upon him by the president, on whose representations he relied.
In what this fraud consisted is nowhere stated, except that the company had no authority under its charter to issue such stock, and that if it had, the certificates were invalid for want of the common seal of the company to them.
We do not think it necessary to decide either of these questions. They depend upon either the general statutory law of Florida, or the charter of the company, of both of which the complainant must be presumed to have had notice. He was certainly bound to know that the certificates which he received were without the seal of the company.
There is no allegation of any other fraud, nor of the time of the discovery of any fraud.
The Statute of Limitations of Florida enacts that all actions, except those for recovery of real estate, must be commenced within three years after the right accrues, but in an action for relief on the ground of fraud, the cause of action is not deemed to have accrued until the discovery by the aggrieved party of the facts constituting the fraud.
All the facts now alleged to constitute the fraud in this case were as well known to the complainant at the time of the transaction as they now are.
The trustees of the internal improvement fund, under the authority vested in them by law, sold out the railroad company, its property and franchises, by way of foreclosure of the mortgage which secured the bonds and coupons of the complainant and others, in 1869, for the sum of $1,220,000. The bill alleges that this was without authority of law, but no sufficient reason for the latter allegation...
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...v. Johnson, 1946, 5 Cir., 155 F.2d 185, at page 191, certiorari denied 1946, 329 U.S. 730, 67 S.Ct. 87, 91 L.Ed. 632; Coddington v. R. Co., 1880, 103 U.S. 409, 26 L.Ed. 400. A cause of action cannot be said to be concealed from one who has personal knowledge of the facts which created it. S......
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...Minn. 29, 211 N. W. 964; 14 Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law (2d Ed.) 54; Upton v. Tribilcock, 91 U. S. 45, 23 L. Ed. 203; Coddington v. P. & G. R. Co., 103 U. S. 409, 26 L. Ed. 400; Mutual L. Ins. Co. v. Phinney, 178 U. S. 327, 20 S. Ct. 906, 44 L. Ed. 1088; Security Sav. Bank v. Kellems (Mo. App.) ......