Wabash Railroad Company v. Adelbert College of the Western Reserve University

• Decision Date: 09 March 1908
• Docket Number: No. 40,40
• Citation: 208 U.S. 609,28 S.Ct. 425,52 L.Ed. 642
• Parties: WABASH RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. ADELBERT COLLEGE OF THE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

208 U.S. 609

28 S.Ct. 425

52 L.Ed. 642

WABASH RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v ADELBERT COLLEGE OF THE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY et al.

No. 40.

Submitted February 24, 1908.

Decided March 9, 1908.

After the decision in this case, reported 208 U. S. 38, ante, 182, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 182, the defendants in error petitioned for a rehearing and moved, if that were denied, that the judgment be modified. The substance of the motion was stated by counsel to be that the judgment should be modified 'by specifically directing that the supreme court of Ohio affirm so much of the judgment of the circuit court of Lucas county, Ohio, as finds and adjudicates the rights of these defendants in error, and each of them against the property and parties in said cause, as set forth in the judgment entry, respecting the equities of the cause and right of recovery, the ownership and the lien of the equipment bonds, and the sums due thereon to the parties, respectively, with interest and costs; and by further specifically directing that said Ohio supreme court reverse the judgment of said circuit court so far as it directs a seizure and sale of the property held by the plaintiff in error in Ohio and affected by such lien, and limit the rights of the defendants in error to the recovery on such modified judgment in the Federal circuit court found by this court to have jurisdiction of the property.'

Mr. Rush Taggart for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. John W. Warrington, John C. F. Gardner, Murray Seasongood, are Thomas B. Paxton, Jr., for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice Moody delivered the opinion of the court:

In the original decision of this cause we treated the proceeding in the state court as one whose sole direct purpose was to procure a sale of the railroad property in satisfaction of the lien which the holders of the equipment bonds asserted against it. We assumed that the judgment of the state court was one for the sale of the property, and that the adjudication of the amounts due the plaintiffs below, and of the existence of the lien claimed, were merely incidental and preliminary to the judgment ordering the sale. Believing, for the reasons given in the opinion, that such a judgment was beyond the jurisdiction of the state court, we reversed it. That such a conception of the proceeding and judgment was not unnatural or strained appears quite clearly from a passage in the brief of the learned counsel for the defendant in error, filed in support of this motion. There it is said: 'No one can read the foregoing abstract of the petition, or the petition itself, without observing its purpose to set up the lien of the equipment bonds with all other liens, also, to have the amount...