Wilson v. Beckwith
| Decision Date | 19 June 1893 |
| Parties | Wilson, Appellant, v. Beckwith |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis City District Court. -- Hon. L. B. Valliant Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
H. J Cantwell and Albert N. Edwards for appellant.
(1) In interpreting a statute, the whole of it must be considered and if in one section provisions are introduced which show the sense in which the legislature employed a doubtful phrase used, that sense is to be adopted in construing such phrase. Every part must be construed in connection with the whole so as to make all parts harmonize. State to use v. Heman, 70 Mo. 411; Washington Market v. Hoffman, 11 Otto, 112; Platt v. Railroad, 9 Otto (98 U.S.), 48. (2) The object of all rules of interpretation is to discover the intent. When the terms of a law or contract are ambiguous, the subject-matter and object of the statute is to be considered in construing it. Conditions existent at the time of the passage of the statute must be considered, and not conditions at date when statute is construed. Spitler v. Young, 63 Mo. 44; State ex rel. v. Dinling, 66 Mo. 379; Platt v. Railroad, 9 Otto 48. (3) Statutes must be interpreted, if possible, so as to make them consistent with the constitution. Phillips v. Railroad, 86 Mo. 540; Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252. (4) The law of February 20, 1855, authorizing the railroad company to mortgage the lands for funds to build the road, was not repealed by the Act of December 10, 1855, nor by that of March 3, 1857, and the later acts must be construed with it. Railroad v. Cass County, 53 Mo. 17; McVey v. McVey, 51 Mo. 406; United States v. Gear, 3 How. 120; Ex parte Cow Dog, 109 U.S. 556; State v. Stoll, 17 Wall. 425. (5) Two acts passed at the same session of the legislature relating to the same subject-matter are in pari materia, and to arrive at the true legislative intent, they must be construed together. State v. Clarke, 54 Mo. 218. Ergo: The act of March 3, 1857 and section 2 of act of same date must be construed together. (6) When a state becomes a party to a contract, the same rules of law are applied to her as to private persons under like circumstances. Davis v. Gray, 16 Wallace, 203. (7) The subsequent declarations of the state evidencing that no lien was ever intended to be created on the lands are admissible, and effectual as a waiver of any lien, the state ever had, if any, on the lands. Brown v. State, 62 Maryland, 439; State to use v. Heman, 70 Mo. 441. (8) Neither the passage of act of March 3, 1857, nor the acceptance of the act constituted a contract between the Cairo & Fulton Railroad Company and the state for the reason that there was no consideration then, nor was there a meeting of minds (unless our view of what the state intended is adopted). The passage of the act, and the acceptance of it, even on the exact terms proposed, only constituted the mere statement of preliminary terms to which reference might have been made, had a contract in accordance therewith been afterwards consummated. The state was not bound, therefore, the other side was not. The railroad company agreed to do nothing of value to the state, and was required to do nothing until the bonds should be received. Trustees v. Rider, 13 Conn. 87; Town v. Portsmouth, 92 U.S. 625; Tilley v. Chicago, 103 U.S. 155; Ellison v. Henshaw, 4 Wheat. 225; Bank v. Hall, 101 U.S. 43. Now the railroad company only said, and the state only required it to say: That when it (the railroad company), should spend so much money (if it ever did), that it, the railroad company, would take certain bonds of the state, which should then be a lien upon the road. (9) The word "property" has no fixed meaning. It may, when used in a will to take effect after a man has no further use for property, be sufficient to include all he was possessed of; but it can only be construed to have that effect in other instances when there is no other evidence to limit the sense in which it was used. Alabama v. Montague, 107 U.S. 602; Smith v. McCullough, 104 U.S. 25. (10) The purchaser under the foreclosure sale of the Cairo & Fulton Railroad took only such rights as the Cairo & Fulton Railroad Company, had at that time released from the debt of the state. Railroad v. McGee, 115 U.S. 476. (11) The act of congress July 28, 1866, was a waiver of forfeiture and not a new grant. Railroad v. McGee, 115 U.S. 460; act of congress, June 10, 1852. (12) The "sellout" act of 1866, could confer no new rights, nor divest rights already vested. No state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts. U. S. Constitution, art. 1, sec. 10.
H. S. Priest and M. L. Clardy for respondent.
(1) The act of congress of February 9, 1853, was a grant in proesenti with a condition subsequent, to-wit: that the road should be completed within ten years. The purpose of the act of July 28, 1866, was to waive any right of forfeiture which existed in favor of the United States, at the time of the passage of the act and to extend the time for the completion of the road. (2) In the first mortgage, the state took its security upon the road and its appurtenances; act of legislature, December 11, 1855, section 3. (3) In its second mortgage the state reserved a lien not only upon the road of the company, but upon its property, meaning its other property, and all of its other property; act March 3, 1857, section 17. (4) The generality of its language forms no objection to the validity of the mortgage. Wilson v. Boyce, 92 U.S. p. 325. (5) The language of the statute reserving the lien of the state is plain, and matters extrinsic to it ought not to be invoked to make it ambiguous. Even the adverse contemporaneous construction of a statute is entitled to no weight where the intent of the law maker is evident. Wear v. Hickman, 5 Mo. 147. Courts ought to construe a statute liberally with a view to the establishment of a charge as against the company itself, or those claiming under it, because if the charge was actually created by statute, those dealing with the company were bound to take notice of it. Tompkins v. Railroad, 125 U.S. 127. Section 5, of the law of February 20, 1855, was so far amended by the act of March 3, 1857, as to make the mortgage for securing the payment of the bonds to be issued by the company subject to the state's lien. (6) Section 16, of the act of March, 1857 (p. 67, abstract), provides that before the governor shall issue any bonds under the provisions of the act, the company shall, by resolution of its board of directors, agree to accept the provisions of such act. The resolution of the board of directors reciting that "this company hereby accepts the provisions of said act of March 3, 1857," consummated the contract between the state and the railroad company by which the latter in consideration of the loan of the state's credit agreed that the state should have "a prior, first and only lien in the nature of a mortgage" on its railroad and property to secure and indemnify the state against the payment of the bonds of the state which might be issued by the company. This statutory mortgage was in the nature of a mortgage for future advances. Foster v. Reynolds, 38 Mo. 553; Brant v. Robertson, 16 Mo. 129. (7) All persons dealing with the railroad company are presumed to have known the tenor and effect of the act of the legislature reserving the state's lien. And besides the trust deed to Moore, Wilson and Waterman recorded in Mississippi county, referred to the acts of December 11, 1855, and March 3, 1857, and in law those under whom plaintiff claims bought with knowledge of the provisions of said statute. A purchaser is bound to read a prior recorded deed in the light of all the facts shown upon its face, and is chargeable with all the information to which such facts lead. Wolfe v. Dyer, 95 Mo. 545. (8) There was no waiver of the state's lien; there could have been no waiver except by the legislature. 2 Herman on Estopple and Res Judicata, pp. 810 and 811. Even as between private individuals the lien of a mortgage can only be waived by facts constituting an equitable estoppel. Christian v. Newberry, 61 Mo. 446; Savings Association v. Mastin, 61 Mo. 435. (9) All the questions arising in this case have been settled adversely to plaintiff in the following well considered cases: Whitehead v. Vineyard, 50 Mo. 30; Wilson v. Boyce, 92 U.S. 320; Chouteau v. Allen, 70 Mo. 327; Railroad v. McGee, 115 U.S. 476. (10) These decisions have become a rule of property and titles have been vested on the strength of it. The certainty of the rule is even more important than the reason of it; the maxim stare decisis et non quieta movere, is the only safe rule and should be adhered to. Reed v. Ownby, 44 Mo. 206; Wells on Res Adjudicata and Stare Decisis, sections 595-600; 2 Herman on Estoppel and Res Judicata, pp. 116-17-23.
OPINION
This was an action of ejectment to recover possession of forty acres of land in Mississippi county. The cause was transferred from that county to St. Louis, where there was a trial, and judgment for defendant. As the case is one of much importance, because of other suits depending upon the same titles, we deem it proper to state the facts with some detail.
On the ninth of February, 1853, congress passed an act (10 United States Statutes 155), granting to the states of Arkansas and Missouri a right of way through the public lands for a railroad from a point on the Mississippi river opposite the mouth of the Ohio to Fulton on the Texas boundary, by the way of Little Rock; also granting to said states, respectively every alternate section of land designated by even numbers, for six sections in width on each side of the road, "for the purposes of...
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