Secor v. Singleton

• Decision Date: 25 March 1890
• Citation: 41 F. 725
• Parties: SECOR et al. v. SINGLETON et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

41 F. 725

SECOR et al. v. SINGLETON et al.

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

March 25, 1890

The bill in this case recites, in substance, that Charles A Secor et al., in a suit heretofore instituted by them in this court as stockholders of the Missouri, Iowa & Nebraska Railway Company, obtained a final order of injunction restraining the railway company from paying taxes on its property located in Scotland, Schuyler, and Clark counties Mo., and restraining the several counties and certain county officials from levying and collecting, or attempting to levy or collect, any taxes on said property prior to the year 1892; that thereafter the property of the railway company to which the injunction related was sold under a decree foreclosing a mortgage executed by the Missouri, Iowa &amp Nebraska Railway Company, in the year 1870, and became by purchase the property of the Keokuk & Western Railway Company, the present complainant, about the 1st of December 1886; and that, since the last-mentioned sale, Scotland county has begun proceedings to enforce the collection of certain taxes assessed against the property in question while it was owned by the Missouri, Iowa & Nebraska Railway Company. The prayer is that the suit in which the injunction was obtained may be revived in the name of the Keokuk & Western Railway Company, and that it may have the benefit of the decree in that proceeding. The bill is demurred to by Scotland and Clark counties, and the county judges thereof.

F. T. Hughes and H. S. Priest, for complainant.

T. S. Montgomery and Anderson & Schofield, for defendant Clark county.

John C. Moore, for defendant Scotland county.

THAYER J., (after stating the facts as above.)

1. On the hearing of the demurrer there was much controversy as to the character of the bill now before the court, and as to whether it could be maintained after a final decree. Touching these points it is sufficient to say, that the court regards it as an ordinary supplemental bill. Complainant the Keokuk & Western Railway Company suggests to the court that since the final decree it has acquired all the interest of one of the original parties in and to the property affected by the litigation and by the decree, and that since the decree certain county officers, who were parties to the suit only in an official capacity, have ceased to be such officers, and that others have been elected in their stead. There is a prayer that the complainant, who has succeeded to the ownership, may be substituted to that position with respect to the litigation that was formerly occupied by the party to whose interest he has succeeded, to the end that certain further action may be taken under the decree. The bill is clearly an ordinary supplemental bill, and the proceedings thereon are regulated in this court by the fifty-seventh equity rule, and in England by statute, (15 & 16 Vict. c. 86, Sec. 52.) Daniell, Ch. Pr. (5th Ed.) 1515, 1524; Van Hook v. Throckmorton, 8 Paige, 33; Sedgwick v. Cleveland, 7 Paige, 287. With respect to the right to file a supplemental bill after final decree, it may be said that the rule is the same as in case of bills of revivor. Such bills, it seems, may be filed as well after a final decree as before, if a person who has succeeded to the interest of one of the original parties to the suit, in such manner as to entitle him to the full benefit of the decree, finds it necessary to invoke further action on the part of the court to obtain such benefit. Indeed, a person entitled to the benefit of a decree by acquiring an interest in the subject-matter of the controversy subsequent to the decree is not, as it seems, entitled to invoke the aid of the court or take further action until he has made himself a party by supplemental bill, and has brought in the representatives or successors in interest of other original parties plaintiff or defendant. Daniell, Ch. Pr. (5th Ed.) 1525-1537; Sedgwick v. Cleveland, supra; Van Hook v. Throckmorton, supra; Binks v. Binks, 2 Bligh, 593, 594; Owings' Case, 1 Bland 409.

2. Treating the pleading now before the court as a supplemental bill, filed after final decree, by a party who has succeeded to an interest in the subject-matter of the litigation, the question arises whether the complainant occupies such a relation to any of the parties to the original suit, as entitled him to file such a bill. The decision of this question must depend on the inquiry, whether the decree in the original suit is as conclusive between the Keokuk &amp Western Railway Company and the several counties and county officials, as it was or is between the Missouri, Iowa & Nebraska Railway Company and those parties. The Keokuk & Western Railway Company has, by virtue of the foreclosure sale, acquired all the interest in the property affected by the litigation that was formerly owned by the Missouri, Iowa & Nebraska Railway Company. If, then, that decree is as conclusive in its behalf as it was in favor of its predecessor in interest, no reason is perceived why it may not file its supplemental bill, and be admitted a party to the record, and obtain the benefit of the decree already entered, without being put to the necessity of filing an original bill to establish its right. The question to be decided seems to be, substantially, one of privity. It is insisted by defendants' counsel that the original decree did not affect the property purchased at the foreclosure sale in any such manner as to bind a subsequent owner, in any event; that it did not qualify the estate or interest that the Missouri, Iowa & Nebraska Railway Company had in the property, and hence was not one of those adjudications that run with the land, and bind a subsequent owner through privity of estate, or that can be invoked for the protection of a subsequent owner. This position the court regards as...