County of Green v. Conners

• Decision Date: 29 October 1883
• Citation: 109 U.S. 104,27 L.Ed. 872,3 S.Ct. 69
• Parties: COUNTY OF GREEN v. CONNERS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

109 U.S. 104

3 S.Ct. 69

27 L.Ed. 872

COUNTY OF GREEN v. CONNERS.

October 29, 1883.

Henry C. Young, for plaintiff in error.

Jas. S. Botsford and R. G. Ingersoll, for defendant in error.

BRADLEY, J.

Nearly every point in this case has already been decided by this court in the cases of County of Callaway v. Foster, 93 U. S. 567; County of Scotland v. Thomas, 94 U. S. 682; County of Henry v. Nicolay, 95 U. S. 619; County of Schuyler v. Thomas, 98 U. S. 169; County of Cass v. Gillett, 100 U. S. 585; City of Louisiana v. Taylor, 105 U. S. 454; and County of Ralls v. Douglass, 105 U. S. 728. In the case last cited we referred to the previous cases, and to the cases in Missouri which they followed, and said:

'Such being the condition of the law on this subject down to April, 1878, we do not feel inclined to reconsider our former rulings, and follow the later decisions of the supreme court of the state in State v. Garroutte, 67 Mo. 445, and State v. Dallas Co. Ct. 72 Mo. 329, where this whole line of cases was substantially overruled. The bonds involved in this suit were all in the hands of innocent holders when the law of the state was so materially altered by its courts. In our opinion the rights of the parties to this suit are to be determined by the law as it was judicially construed to be when the bonds in question were put on the market as commercial paper. Douglass v. Pike Co. 101 U. S. 687.'

From the views thus expressed we are not disposed to swerve.

One point taken in the present case may not have been presented in any of the cases cited, to-wit, that the rights, privileges, and franchises of the Kansas City & Cameron Railroad Company were not expressly declared to pass over to the company with which it might become consolidated by the law authorizing such consolidation. This law was passed March 11, 1867, and declared as follows:

'It shall be lawful and competent for said company to make such arrangement with any other railroad company to furnish equipments, and to run and manage its railroad, as it may deem expedient and find necessary, or to lease the same, or to consolidate it with any other company upon such terms as may be deemed just and proper.'

In the 'finding of facts' made by the court it is, among other things, found as follows:

'That under the provisions of an act of the general assemby of the state of Missouri, approved May 11, 1867, entitled, etc., the said corporation, then known as the Kansas City & Cameron Railroad Company, on the twenty-first day of February, in the year 1870, was consolidated with the ...