Mary Amis Quinlan v. Green County
Decision Date | 08 April 1907 |
Docket Number | No. 213,213 |
Citation | 27 S.Ct. 505,205 U.S. 410,51 L.Ed. 860 |
Parties | MARY AMIS QUINLAN, Executrix, v. GREEN COUNTY, Kentucky |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Plaintiff in error brought an action in the circuit court of the United States for the western district of Kentucky upon certain bonds and coupons purporting to have been issued by the defendant in error, one of the counties of the state of Kentucky. The following was the form of the bond:
United States of America,
County of Green, State of Kentucky.
$500.00
For the Cumberland & Ohio Railroad.
Twenty years after date, the county of Green in the state of Kentucky, will pay to the holder of this bond the sum of $500 with interest thereon at the rate of 6 per cent per annum, payable semianually upon presentation of the proper coupons hereto attached, the principal and interest being payable at the Bank of America, in the city of New York.
In testimony whereof, the judge of said county of Green has hereunto set his hand and affixed the seal of said county, on the 1st day of April, A. D., 1871, and caused the same to be attested by the county clerk, who has also signed the coupons hereto attached.
(Green county seal.)
D. T. Towles, Clerk.
The case was tried without a jury, and the court, after finding facts, rendered judgment for the defendant. The case then went to the court of appeals for the sixth circuit, and that court has certified here two questions of law upon which it desires instructions, with a statement of facts upon which the questions arise. In addition to the statement of facts we take into account the material parts of the charter of the Cumber land & Ohio Railroad Company, § 15 of which contains the following provisions:
* * * * *
The charter gives to the Cumberland & Ohio Railroad 'all the powers and privileges conferred upon the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company by the laws of Kentucky for constructing and operating their said proposed railroad.' The charter of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company provides 'that said railroad company may receive subscriptions of stock to their company by individuals, towns, cities, counties, or other corporations, whether payable in money or other things, with such terms and time of payment, conditions annexed, and kind of payment that may be set forth in the subscription.' The commissioners of the Cumberland & Ohio Railroad requested the county court to submit to the qualified voters of the county the question whether the county should subscribe to $250,000 of the capital stock of the company, payable in bonds of the county, whereupon the judge of the county court on the 17th of June, 1869, ordered an election in the following terms:
The election was duly held July 3, 1869, and the vote was in the affirmative. During the year before this vote the voters of the county had voted in favor of a proposition to subscribe to the stock of the Elizabethtown & Tennessee Railroad, and thereupon the county judge had ordered the clerk of his court to make a subscription to the stock of the Elizabethtown & Tennessee Railroad Company, 'on the terms specified in the order submitting the question to a bote.' This was the subscription from which Green county desired to be exonerated before the Cumberland & Ohio Railroad bonds should be issued, or any part of their principal or interest paid. On June 3, 1870, the county judge entered an order reciting the election at which the qualified voters had approved the subscription to the capital stock of the Cumberland & Ohio Railroad, and concluding: 'Now, therefore, I, Thomas R. Barnett, the presiding judge of the Green county court, by virtue of the authority in me vested by law, and to carry out the wishes of said voters, do hereby subscribe for $250,000 of the capital stock of said Cumberland & Ohio Railroad Company for and on behalf of said county of Green, which subscription is to be paid in the bonds of said county as prescribed in said order of submission, and this subscription is made with the conditions set out in the order of this court ordering said election, and now of record in the office of this county.'
At the April term, 1871, the supreme court of the state rendered a decision in the case of Mercer County Court v. Kentucky River Nav. Co. 8 Bush, 300. It is argued that this decision shows that the subscription to the stock of the Elizabethtown & Tennessee Railroad was void. However that may be, at a time which does not distinctly appear, but later than that decision, the judge of the county court issued and delivered to the Cumberland & Ohio Railroad Company bonds of Green county to a small amount. On August 15, 1872, the judge, in a formal order, reciting that application had been made for the issue of the balance of the bonds, directed that, 'the court being sufficiently advised,' they be signed and issued. Thereupon certificates of 2,500 shares of that stock of the par value of $100...
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...there reached, cited, among other cases, that of Evansville v. Dennett. See also the recent case of Quinlan v. Green County, 205 U. S. 410, 51 L. ed. 860, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 505. Our conclusion on this branch of the case is that the county of Presidio is estopped by the recitals in its bonds ......