Gould v. Evansville and Crawfordsville Co

• Court: United States Supreme Court
• Citation: 23 L.Ed. 416,91 U.S. 526
• Parties: GOULD v. EVANSVILLE AND CRAWFORDSVILLE R.R. CO
• Decision Date: 01 October 1875

91 U.S. 526

23 L.Ed. 416

GOULD v. EVANSVILLE AND CRAWFORDSVILLE R.R. CO.

October Term, 1875

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Indiana.

This was an action brought by the plaintiff in error against the defendant to recover the amount of a judgment rendered by the Supreme Court of the State of New York in favor of the plaintiff's testator against the defendant corporation.

The defendant pleaded in bar a judgment in its favor on demurrer to the declaration, in a suit brought on the same cause of action in the Knox Circuit Court of Indiana.

A demurrer to this plea was overruled: whereupon the plaintiff below replied, alleging material differences between the facts stated in the declaration in this case and those stated in the declaration in the case in the Knox Circuit Court, claiming that the judgment on demurrer to the declaration in the Knox Circuit Court was not a judgment on the merits. To this replication a demurrer was sustained, and the plaintiff below excepted.

The merits of the case are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

The case was argued by Mr. C. Tracy for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. Asa Iglehart for the defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

Special pleading is still allowed in certain jurisdictions; and, if the plaintiff and defendant in such a forum elect to submit their controversy in that form of pleading, the losing party must be content to abide the consequences of his own election.

Due service of process compels the defendant to appear, or to submit to a default; but, if he appears, he may, in most jurisdictions, elect to plead or demur, subject to the condition, that, if he pleads to the declaration, the plaintiff may reply to his plea, or demur; and the rule is, in case of a demurrer by the defendant to the declaration, or of a demurrer by the plaintiff to the plea of the defendant, if the other party joins in demurrer, it becomes the duty of the court to determine the question presented for decision; and if it involves the merits of the controversy, and is determined in favor of the party demurring, and the other party for any cause does not amend, the judgment is in chief; and it is settled law that such a judgment of the Circuit Court, if the sum or value in controversy is sufficient, may be removed into this court for re-examination by writ of error, under the twenty-second section of the Judiciary Act. Suydam v. Williamson, 20 How. 436; Gorman v. Lenox, 15 Pet. 115.

Pleadings which were subsequently abandoned will be passed over without notice, except to say that the suit was commenced by the testator in his lifetime. Briefly described, the suit referred to was an action of debt to recover the amount of a judgment which the testator of the plaintiff, as he alleged, recovered on the 3d of August, 1860, against the defendant corporation, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, by virtue of a certain suit therein pending, in which, as the decedent alleged, the court there had jurisdiction of the parties and of the subject-matter of the action; and he also alleged that the judgment still remains in full force, and not in any wise vacated, reversed, or satisfied. Defensive averments, of a special character, are also contained in the declaration; to which it will presently become necessary to refer in some detail, in order to determine the principal question presented for decision. Suffice it to remark in this connection, that the testator of the plaintiff alleged in conclusion, that, by virtue of the several allegations contained in the declaration, an action had accrued to him to demand and have of and from the defendant corporation the sum therein mentioned, with interest from the date of the judgment.

Service was made, and the corporation defendants, in the suit before the court, appeared and pleaded in bar of the action a former judgment in their favor, rendered in the County Circuit Court of the State of Indiana for the same cause of action, as more fully set forth in the record; from which it appears that the testator of the present plaintiff, then in full life, impleaded the corporation defendants in an action of debt founded on the same judgment as that set up in the present suit, and alleged that he, the plaintiff, instituted his action in that case, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, against the Evansville and Illinois Railroad Company, a corporation created by the laws of the State of Indiana; that the said corporation defendants appeared in the suit by attorney; that such proceedings therein were had, that he, on the 3d of August, 1860, recovered judgment against the said corporation defendants for the sum therein mentioned, being for the same amount, debt and cost, as that specified in the judgment set up in the declaration of the case before the court; that the declaration in that case, as in the present case, alleged that the court which rendered the judgment was a court competent to try and determine the matter in controversy; and that the judgment remains in full force, unreversed, and not paid.

Superadded to that, the defendants in the present suit allege, in their plea in bar, that the plaintiff averred in the former suit that the said Evansville and Illinois Railroad Company, by virtue of a law of the State of Indiana, consolidated their organization and charter with the organization and charter of the Wabash Railroad Company; that the two companies then and there and thereby became one company, by the corporate name of the Evansville and Crawfordsville Railroad Company; that the consolidated company then and there by that name took possession of all the rights, credits, effects, and property of the two separate companies, and used and converted the same, under their new corporate name, to their own use, and then and there and thereby became and were liable to pay all the debts and liabilities of the first-named railroad company, of which the claim of the plaintiff in that suit is one; that the plaintiff also averred that the consolidated company from that date directed and managed the defence wherein the said judgment was rendered, and that the act of consolidation and the aforesaid change of the corporate name of the company were approved by an act of the legislature of the State; that the consolidated company became and is liable to pay the judgment, interest, and cost; that a copy of the judgment and proceedings mentioned in the declaration in that suit, as also copies of all the acts of the legislature therein referred to, were duly filed with said complaint as exhibits thereto; that the corporation defendants appeared to the action, and demurred to the complaint; and that the court sustained the demurrer, and gave the plaintiff leave to amend.

But the record shows that the plaintiff in that case declined to amend his declaration, and that the court rendered judgment for the defendants. An appeal was prayed by the plaintiff; but it does not appear that the appeal, if it was allowed, was ever prosecuted; and the present defendants aver, in their plea in bar, that the matters and things set forth in the declaration in that case are the same matters and things as those set forth in the declaration in the present suit; that the plaintiff impleaded the defendants in that suit, in a court of competent jurisdiction, upon the same cause of action, disclosing the same ground of claim, and alleging the same facts to sustain the same, as are described and alleged in the present declaration; that the court had jurisdiction of the parties and of the subject-matter, and rendered a final judgment upon the merits in favor of the defendants and against the plaintiff, and that the judgment remains unreversed and in full force.

Plaintiff demurred to the plea; and the defendants joined in the demurrer, and the cause was continued. During the vacation, the original plaintiff deceased; and it was ordered that the cause be revived in the name of the executrix of his last will and testament. Both parties subsequently appeared and were heard; and the court, consisting of the circuit and dist ict judges overruled the demurrer to the plea in bar, and decided that the plea is a good bar to the action.

Instead of amending the declaration pursuant to the leave granted, the plaintiff filed a replication to the plea in bar, to the effect following,—that the decision of the County Circuit Court of the State was not a decision and judgment on the merits of the case, but, on the contrary thereof, the judgment of that court only decided that the complaint or declaration did not state facts sufficient to sustain the action, in this, that, according to the allegations of the complaint, the original Evansville and Illinois Railroad Company, on the taking place of the alleged consolidation as set forth in the complaint, ceased to exist as a separate corporation; and that the complaint did not state any matters of fact showing a revivor of the suit against the consolidated company, or any facts which rendered such a revivor unnecessary; that the following allegations contained in the declaration in this case, and which were not contained in the complaint in the prior case, fully supply all the facts, for the want of which the demurrer was so sustained by the judge of the County Circuit Court, and in the defence of which he, the said judge, held that the suit had abated by the consolidation.

Matters omitted in the former declaration and supplied in the present, as alleged in the replication of the plaintiff, are the following: (1.) That the two companies, on the 18th of November, 1852, by virtue of the act to incorporate the Wabash Railroad Company, consolidated their charters, and united into one company under the name and style of the Evansville and Illinois Railroad Company; and that the consolidated company, under that name, continued to appear to and defend the said action in...