Marcy v. Township of Oswego
| Decision Date | 01 October 1875 |
| Citation | 23 L.Ed. 748,92 U.S. 637 |
| Parties | MARCY v. TOWNSHIP OF OSWEGO |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Kansas.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Alfred Ennis and Mr. A. L. Williams for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. Henry G. Webb, contra.
At the trial in the Circuit Court, the plaintiff proved by competent evidence that the bonds, coupons of which were declared upon, were part of a series of bonds for $100,000 voted and issued by the township, and that they were so voted and issued in strict compliance with an act of the legislature of the State, approved Feb. 25, 1870, unless they were voted and issued in excess of the amount authorized by the act. It became, therefore, a question whether, in this suit, brought by a bona fide holder for value to recover the amount of some of the coupons, it could be shown, as a defence to a recovery, that at the time of voting and issuing the series of bonds the value of the taxable property of the township was not in amount sufficient to authorize the voting and issuing of the whole series, amounting to $100,000.
To solve this question, there are some facts appearing in the case which it is necessary to consider. The bonds to which the coupons were attached contained the following recital:——
'This bond is executed and issued by virtue of and in accordance with an act of the legislature of the said State of Kansas entitled 'An Act to enable municipal township to subscribe for stock in any railroad, and to provide for the payment of the same, approved Feb. 25, 1870,' and in pursuance of and in accordance with the vote of three-fifths of the legal voters of said township of Oswego, at a special election duly held on the seventeenth day of May, A.D. 1870.'
Each bond also declared that the board of county commissioners of the county of Labette (of which county the township of Oswego is a part) had caused it to be issued in the name and in behalf of said township, and to be signed by the chairman of the said board of county commissioners, and attested by the county-clerk of the said county, under its seal. Accordingly, each bond was thus signed, attested, and sealed. Nor is this all. The bonds were registered in the offence of the State auditor, and certified by him in accordance with the provisions of an act of the legislature. Hie certificate on the back of each bond declared that it had been regularly and legally issued, that the signatures thereto were genuine, and that it had been duly registered in accordance with the act of the legislature.
In view of these facts, and of the decisions heretofore made by this court, the first question certified to us cannot be considered an open one. We have recently reviewed the subject in Town of Coloma v. Eaves, suprea, p. 484, and reasserted what had been decided before; namely, that where legislative authority has been given to a municipality to subscribe for the stock of a railroad company, and to issue municipal bonds in payment of the subscription, on the happening of some precedent contingency of fact, and where it may be gathered from the legislative enactment that the officers or persons designated to execute the bonds were invested with power to decide whether the contingency had happened, or whether the fact existed which was a necessary precedent to any subscription or issue of the bonds, their decision is final in a suit by the bona fide holder of the bonds against the municipality, and a recital in the bonds that the requirements of the legislative act have been complied with, is conclusive. And this is more emphatically true when the fact is one peculiarly...
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