State ex rel. Neal v. Saline Cnty. Court

• Decision Date: 31 August 1871
• Citation: 48 Mo. 390
• Parties: THE STATE OF MISSOURI, TO USE OF J. B. NEAL, Plaintiff, v. SALINE COUNTY COURT, Defendant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

48 Mo. 390

THE STATE OF MISSOURI, TO USE OF J. B. NEAL, Plaintiff,

v.SALINE COUNTY COURT, Defendant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

August Term, 1871.

Petition for Mandamus.

Amos Green & T. A. Green, for plaintiff.

The bonds are duly issued and signed by the presiding justice of the County Court, and attested by the clerk under the official seal of the county, and recite on their face that they are issued under and pursuant to the provision of the act of the Legislature, reciting its date, etc., and having passed into the hands of innocent purchasers for a valuable consideration, it is too late to set up or show informality in the issuing of them, or that the vote was not had in conformity with the requirements of the law. The bonds on their face import absolute verity, and the county and district are estopped from setting up any failure on their part to comply with the law. (Bissell et al. v. The City of Jeffersonville, 24 How. 287.)J. P. Strother, for defendant.

No one could be an innocent purchaser, because in this case the bonds on their face referred to the special law and to the records of the County Court.

A purchaser was bound to look to both, and the records showed that the authority had not been pursued, and that the bonds were therefore invalid. (Sess. Acts 1860-1, p. 455; 2 Redf. Railw. 403; 27 Penn. 389; 23 N. Y. 449; 24 How. 298; 45 Mo. 246-8; Marsh v. Supervisors of Fulton County, 10 Wall. 676.)

It does not appear that the County Court of Saline county issued these alleged bonds. They were executed by the presiding justice and clerk without authority.

Even if one could be an innocent purchaser in such a case as this, the burden of proof would be on plaintiff, and he has failed to show his innocency by satisfactory evidence.

BLISS, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

In the State on the relation of the Lexington & St. Louis R.R. Co. v. Saline County Court, reported in 45 Mo. 242, an application was made for a mandamus compelling defendant to deliver to the relator certain bonds, and to assess taxes to pay the interest upon other bonds that had been delivered. The application was denied upon the ground that the law authorized the issue of the bonds only upon a vote of the people of the portion of the county interested, ““specifying the amount” to be issued; that the vote did not specify the amount, and that the records of the court showed the defect. We did not say what might have been our opinion had the bonds that were issued gone into circulation and been in the hands of innocent holders.

The present relator represents that $1,200 of those bonds had been actually negotiated by the county in the construction of their road, and have been purchased and are now held by him, and he asks for a mandamus to compel the County Court to levy a tax to pay the same. The record shows the same state of facts exhibited in the former case, with the addition only of the trans fer of the bonds and their purchase by the relator.

The liability of municipal and of quasi corporations for the acts of their lawful agents in issuing negotiable bonds has been considered by this court upon various occasions, and the subject was elaborately discussed at our last March term in Steines v. Franklin County, 48 Mo. 167. The doctrines there affirmed have always been recognized by us, and are founded upon the broadest principles of justice. These bonds are treated like negotiable commercial paper, and after they have been transferred in the usual course of business the authority to execute and issue them is almost the only question open to consideration. The question of authority necessarily arises from the fact that they are executed by agents, and we have only to consider what constitutes authority.

The general rule is that when the statute gives authority to contract a debt upon specified conditions their performance is necessary to support the authority; and in a direct proceeding to prevent the consummation of the contract, the substantial performance of every radical condition may be insisted on. But when the law imposes such a condition upon the exercise of the power as a submission to a vote of the people, and an attempt has been made in good faith to comply with the condition, and it has been supposed by all parties to have been regularly complied with, the bond upon its face showing a compliance, strangers should not be required to look further. This class of bonds are negotiated by delivery; they go into market in distant States or foreign countries; and if the holder were required to show the regularity of all the proceedings, their negotiability would be greatly impaired or altogether destroyed, and the injustice to one who had received them, trusting to the truth of the recitals, would be very great. The purchaser in an eastern market may be satisfied as to the law--that the matter was submitted to the people, and that the county authorities acted upon that submission; but of the regularity of all the proceedings he cannot be advised without sending to a distant State and perhaps an obscure county, employing counsel to examine the records and poll-books, and then he may be wrongly advised. The law throws no such burden upon him. He has trusted and he has a right to trust to the decision of the proper authorities, made when the bonds were issued, as to the regularity of the proceedings. Such decision...