Henry Cnty. v. Allen

• Decision Date: 31 July 1872
• Citation: 50 Mo. 231
• Parties: HENRY COUNTY, Respondent, v. ROBERT ALLEN, PACIFIC RAILROAD, INTERPLEADER, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

50 Mo. 231

HENRY COUNTY, Respondent,

v.ROBERT ALLEN, PACIFIC RAILROAD, INTERPLEADER, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

July Term, 1872.

Appeal from Henry Circuit Court.

Hicks & Phillips, for appellant.

I. Allen was not the agent of the county. He was not, in fact, in the legal acception of the terms, an agent for any one. The County Court, being itself but an agent for the county, could not delegate its power. And Allen was but the mere instrument to do certain acts that the court itself might have done. (Hann. & St. Jo. R.R. Co. v. Marion County, 36 Mo. 302-3.)

II. The County Court made the subscription. It was valid and binding. All the authority the County Court had in relation to the subscription, etc., was administrative and not judicial.

To declare the subscription void would be a judicial proceeding. Where is the law found that clothes the County Court with jurisdiction to declare the subscription void? It has none. Its act of nullification was void. So was the order directing Allen to pay the money into the county treasury void. When the levy was made and collected, the County Court had no authority to make an order diverting the money from its proper destination, the Pacific Railroad.

H. B. Johnson and F. P. Wright, for respondent.

The railroad company would have no claim to specific money of the county in the hands of an agent before the same was ordered to be paid out, but would have to proceed directly against the county to recover judgment, and to enforce payment of such judgment by mandamus.

Until the issue of such order, the funds were subject to the control of the County Court.

ADAMS, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This was a suit for the recovery of a sum of money from the defendant, which he is alleged to have received as agent of the plaintiff and refused to pay over to plaintiff on demand. The Pacific Railroad Company was allowed to interplead in the case, and did so, claiming the money in the hands of defendant as its money. The case was determined in favor of the plaintiff, and judgment rendered against the defendant for $900, balance of money in his hands, and also judgment on interplea against the claimant, and the defendant and claimant have brought the case here by appeal.

The facts are substantially as follows: In 1855 the County Court ordered a subscription to the capital stock of the railroad company for $50,000, and appointed George R. Smith to make the subscription, which was done. The County Court afterwards levied a tax to be collected to pay the calls that might be made on this subscription, and appointed the defendant Allen as agent of the county to represent its interests in all matters connected with the subscription; “to receive the money from the county for the calls of the company for the stock subscribed by said county, and pay the same over to the company when ordered by the court, and superintend all the transactions necessary between said county and said Pacific...