Rummel v. Butler County

• Decision Date: 15 March 1899
• Docket Number: 4,034.
• Citation: 93 F. 304
• Parties: RUMMEL v. BUTLER COUNTY et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

93 F. 304

RUMMEL v. BUTLER COUNTY et al.

No. 4,034.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Missouri, Eastern Division.

March 15, 1899

John F Shepley, for complainant.

M. L Clardy, E. S. Robert, and Wood & Douglas, for defendants.

ADAMS District Judge.

This is a suit to cancel certain alleged conveyances affecting a large quantity of swamp lands situated in Butler county, Mo as clouds upon complainant's title. The larger portion of these lands is embraced in the mortgage, of date May 23 1857, executed by the Cairo & Fulton Railroad Company to Moore, Wilson, and Waterman, trustees, to secure the payment of an issue of $1,600,000 in bonds of said railroad company, and is subject to the considerations which constrained this court, in the case of Bump v. Butler Co. (decided at this term) 93 F. 290, to hold that the decree of 1869, rendered in the suit of Butler county against the Cairo & Fulton Railroad Company et al., is conclusive against Bump's legal title. It is unnecessary to restate the reasons which resulted in that holding. The same result is necessarily reached in this case with respect to all of the lands in controversy which are in the same situation with respect- to title as those involved in the Bump Case. As to any lands, therefore, described in complainant's bill in this case which are embraced in the mortgage of 1857, foreclosed by the decree of the supreme court of Missouri in 1879, and purchased by Charles P. Chouteau, the complainant in this case is entitled, for the reasons stated in the Bump Case, to no relief. But different questions are presented in this case with respect to 3,040 acres of land, described in complainant's bill as situate in township 23, range 3 E. These lands are known, and will hereafter be referred to, as 'interest lands.'

By reason of the claim of certain settlers to some parcels of land patented to the railroad company by the county in satisfaction of the two subscriptions of that county to the capital stock of the Cairo & Fulton Railroad Company, of date, respectively, October 24, 1854, and December 6, 1855, the county of Butler on September 23, 1858, conveyed, in exchange therefor, to the railroad company, the above-mentioned interest lands. The railroad company afterwards, on October 6, 1858, conveyed said interest lands, by a supplemental deed in the nature of a mortgage, to Moore, Wilson, and Waterman, under and subject to the same trusts as were expressed in the mortgage of May 23, 1857, executed by the railroad company to secure the payment of its bonds. Mr. Chouteau, as holder of said bonds, on June 6, 1886, instituted a suit to foreclose the supplemental mortgage of 1858. This suit resulted in a decree of foreclosure, and a sale of the mortgaged lands, by a commissioner appointed for that purpose, to the grantor of Charles P. Chouteau, who, after having acquired the title, in 1893 sold and conveyed the lands so by him acquired to the complainant in this case. The validity of this supplemental mortgage was not involved in, or affected by, the decree of 1869; put the defendants assail this title on the ground that said subscriptions of Butler county to the capital stock of the railroad company were made without first having secured the consent of the taxpayers of the county at an election held for that purpose, and claim that for this reason the title to the said interest lands in fact never passed out of Butler county by the deed of September 23, 1858, to the railroad company, and, as a necessary consequence, never passed by the supplemental mortgage of 1858, or the sale under the foreclosure proceedings in 1886. Several persons, who, according to the averments of the bill, claim different portions of these lands, were originally made defendants. Some of them answer, disclaiming any right in and to the lands in question; and the complainant, prior to the submission of this cause, dismissed his bill as to all others who were alleged to have some claim to these interest lands, except Butler county and one John Mangold. So far as the interest lands are concerned, therefore, the controversy stands between the complainant, holding title under Mr. Chouteau, and the defendant Butler county, with respect to all of said interest lands except the S.W. 1/4 of section 27, township 23, range 5, which, it appears, was sold nine years ago by Butler county to John Mangold.

The defendants not being aided by the estoppel of the decree of 1869 with respect to...