Jamison v. Griswold

• Decision Date: 07 January 1879
• Citation: 6 Mo.App. 405
• Parties: WILLIAM C. JAMISON, Defendant in Error, v. WILLIAM D. GRISWOLD, Plaintiff in Error.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

6 Mo.App. 405

WILLIAM C. JAMISON, Defendant in Error,

v.WILLIAM D. GRISWOLD, Plaintiff in Error.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Jan. 7, 1879.

1. One to whom a bond is made payable, and who guarantees and then negotiates the same, is estopped to deny its validity as against himself.

2. An adjudication of the unconstitutionality of the bonds does not deprive the holder of the capacity to bind himself and his property to the payment thereof; and though the bonds were originally void, yet the holder, having by his guaranty and the pledge of his real estate given them currency, cannot repudiate his pledge at the expense of his transferee.

ERROR to St. Louis Circuit Court.

Affirmed.

S. M. BRECKINRIDGE and J. M. & C. H. KRUM, forplaintiff in error: The bonds to whose payment the defendant in error seeks to subject the fund awarded to the plaintiff in error were not only void when the defendant in error received them, but they bore upon them express notice of their invalidity. The act under which they were issued was set forth at large upon each bond. It follows, therefore, that the defendant in error obtained the bonds with full notice of their invalidity.-- McClure v. Oxford, 94 U. S. 429; Harshman v. Bates County, 92 U. S. 569; Cromwell v. Sac County, 96 U. S. 59; The State ex rel. v. Leffingwell, 54 Mo. 458. The fact that the defendant in error had notice and knowledge of the invalidity of the bonds, and the act under which they were issued, removes the case at once from the operation of the doctrine of estoppel against the plaintiff in error.-- Boggs v. Mining Co., 14 Cal. 279; Green v. Prettyman, 17 Cal. 401; Fletcher v. Holmes, 25 Ind. 458; Rice v. Bunce, 49 Mo. 235; Andrews v. Lyon, 11 Allen, 349; The Commonwealth v. Moltz, 10 Barr, 531; Gordon v. Arnold, 22 Mich. 247; Tenney v. Hand, 32 Mich. 63; Crawford v. Lockwood, 9 How. 547; Shapleigh v. Abbott, 42 N. Y. 448; Kneettle v. Newcomb, 31 Barb. 169; Hutchins v. Hebbard, 34 N. Y. 24; Danforth v. Adams, 29 Conn. 111; Rutherford v. Tracy, 48 Mo. 325; Kincaid v. Donnell, 51 Mo. 552. It is a total misconception of the scope of equity jurisdiction to suppose that, on the theory of an equitable mortgage, the fund now in controversy can be subjected to the claim of the defendant in error.-- Stevens v. Cooper, 1 Johns. Ch. 426, 431; Parkman v. Welch, 19 Pick. 231, 238; Fassett v. Traber, 20 Ohio, 540; Craythorne v. Swinburne, 14 Ves. 160; Black v. Shreeve, 3 Halst. Ch. 457.

T. C. REYNOLDS and GEORGE W. CLINE, for defendant in error.

LEWIS, P. J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This case was before us at the March term, 1876, and is reported in 2 Mo. App. 150. The history of the subjectmatter is there carefully detailed, and need not be repeated here. After the remanding of the cause to the Circuit Court, the intervenor, Jamison, filed by leave of court a new interplea, repeating substantially the grounds of the original; and the defendant put its allegations in issue by a general denial. There was a trial before the court sitting as a jury, and judgment was given in favor of the interpleader for $2,427. Both parties moved unsuccessfully for a new trial, and the defendant has brought the case here by writ of error.

We are asked by defendant's counsel to review our former opinion in this cause, and to modify some of its conclusions. We think, however, that the positions there assumed are fully sustained by authority, and that the reasoning of the learned judge who delivered the opinion cannot be successfully controverted. Our conviction is unshaken that, upon the case there presented, the defendant was estopped to deny the validity of the bonds in the hands of the interpleader, and that a proportional satisfaction of them was due out of the proceeds of the condemnation, which had been paid into court.

But the defendant insists that the present record develops some new elements of fact which supersede the application of our former adjudication as a controlling authority in this. The argument drawn from these elements seems to rest chiefly on the proposition that the interpleader took the bonds with full knowledge of their alleged infirmities by reason of the unconstitutionality of the act of March 25, 1872, under which they were issued. The argument assumes too much. It is true that the decision of the Supreme Court against the validity of that law deprived the park commissioners of a corporate existence. It nullified all their acts and their supposed obligations. As to them the bonds were null. But did the fact deprive the defendant of all capacity to bind himself or his property with reference to the bonds? This is the real question which the defendant individually raises, and yet seems to ignore in all the discussion. If the defendant could bind his property for the payment of the sums mentioned in the bonds, at the times and in the manner therein set forth, and did do so, it matters not what the holder knew or did not know concerning their origin. It seems to be forgotten that if the interpleader, with the act of 1872 before him, printed on the backs of the bonds, was thus charged with notice of its unconstitutionality, the defendant himself had precisely the same notice when he executed the deed charging his land with the redemption of the bonds. He knew, according to his own theory, that the bonds were originally void. Yet he voluntarily executed a deed,--not to the abortive or non-existent corporation, but to “the people of the city and county of St. Louis,”--solemnly guaranteeing the validity of the bonds in the hands of any future holder, and pledging his land to sustain the guaranty. With what sort of grace can he now say that his pledge meant nothing, although it gave to the bonds a market value which he himself has realized at the expense of his transferrer and of the interpleader?

It appeared, in addition to the facts stated in our former opinion, that the consideration expressed in the defendant's deed was $82,740; for which, as recited in the deed, the commissioners had issued and delivered to the grantor seventy-six Forest Park bonds, under the act of 1872. In fact, however, only ten of the bonds were actually delivered, of which six are the bonds concerned in this controversy. They were in form negotiable, payable to bearer, and to mature in twenty years. The act of 1872 was printed on the back of each bond, and in the body of each was the following statement: “This bond, and each and every of all others issued under said act, not exceeding altogether the sum of $1,200,000, has a lien, common to all said bonds, of the nature and operation of a mortgage, upon all the lands acquired and to be acquired for said park, and which lien is the first thereon, and shall be enforceable in the manner mortgages are foreclosed, for the payment of this bond and its coupons, in any court of competent jurisdiction for foreclosing mortgages on real estate held in the city of St. Louis in said State.”

In 1871 the defendant made an agreement with James B. Geggie, a partner in the firm of Leffingwell & Co., realestate agents, by which the agents were to “engineer, work up, and work through” the act then in contemplation for establishing Forest Park; in consideration whereof defendant was to convey to them five acres of his land within the boundaries of the park. After the passage of the act, it was agreed that in lieu of the five acres defendant should...