Lloyd v. Preston/Opinion of the Court

by George Shiras, Jr.

United States Supreme Court

146 U.S. 630

Lloyd  v.  Preston

This was a bill filed by judgment creditors of the Cincinnati, Columbus & Hocking Valley Railway Company to compel E. L. Harper and others to pay their respective unpaid subscriptions to the capital stock of said company, in order that the same might be applied to the payment of complainants' judgments, which remained unsatisfied after proceedings at law.

The bare statement of the facts attending the organization of the railway company fully justifies the opinion of the court below 'that the entire organization was grossly fraudulent from first to last, without a single honest incident or redeeming feature.'

It having been found, on convincing evidence, that the overvaluation of the property transferred to the railway company by Harper, in pretended payment of the subscriptions to the capital stock, was so gross and obvious as, in connection with the other facts in the case, to clearly establish a case of fraud, and to entitle bona fide creditors to enforce actual payment by the subscribers, it only remains to consider the effect of the defenses set up.

The first is set up by Harper himself, in his answer to the bill of complaint; the other by Lloyd, assignee for the benefit of creditors of Harper, and who filed an answer, and likewise a cross bill.

Harper's defense, beyond the allegation that the stock subscriptions had been fully paid up by a transfer of property to the railway company, consisted in the assertion that Preston & McHenry were estopped from alleging, as judgment creditors of the railway company, that the capital stock was not adequately and actually paid up, because they were cognizant of the proceedings by which the company was organized, and privy to the arrangement whereby the property referred to was taken in full payment of this stock; and that the other complainants claimed under and through Preston & McHenry, and were therefore affected by their knowledge and complicity in the transaction.

Issues were taken on this alllegation of Harper, and it was found by the court below that Preston & McHenry did not agree or understand that the subscriptions to the capital stock of the railway company, whose bonds they agreed to take in payment of Harper's indebtedness to them, were to be paid by the simple transfer of the property to the railway company, but that they understood that the stockholders of the company were to be subject to the liabilities imposed by the law of Ohio, namely, full payment in money or its equivalent, and, in addition, 100 per cent. individual liability, and that they were in no wise chargeable with knowledge of or complicity in the company's illegal organization.

An examination of the evidence contained in the record satisfies us of the correctness of this conclusion of the court below.

This brings us to a consideration of the second ground of defense, which is the one advanced by Lloyd, the assignee. He alleges that the original indebtedness of Harper to Preston & McHenry, in payment of which they took the bonds of the railway company, arose out of gambling transactions in wheat deals at the Chicago board of trade; and he claimed, accordingly, that not only were the bonds void in their hands, but likewise the judgments obtained thereon against the railway company; and he further claimed, in his cross bill, the recovery of a large sum of money paid by Harper to Preston & McHenry, on account of these alleged gambling transactions, before the settlement between the parties which resulted in their taking the railway bonds in payment of the balance due them.

It was the opinion of the court below that there was absolutely no testimony in support of either the answer or the cross bill of the assignee.

The only evidence disclosed by the record, on this issue, appears at pages 46 and 47, and we fully concur with the court below that neither this evidence nor any offer of evidence made on behalf of the defense, if taken to be true, established the case of a gambling transaction. ^[1]

Complaint is made by the assignee of the course of the court below in striking out of his answer, on motion, the allegations pertaining to the supposed gambling transactions, and in sustaining the demurrer to his cross bill.

This action of the court was probably based on the view urged on behalf of the complainants that Lloyd, as assignee, could not be heard, in this suit, to impeach the validity of the judgments obtained against the railway company, by going into an investigation of the nature of the original transaction out of which had arisen the indebtedness of Harper to Preston & McHenry, and in a settlement of which the bonds had been received by the latter.

But it does not appear to be necessary to inquire into the reasons of the action of the court below in this respect, nor to consider whether the legal position implied in that action was sound, because, as we have seen, and as the court below held, there was no evidence admitted or offered which sufficed to sustain the allegation that the transactions between Harper and Preston & McHenry were of a gambling character.

Hence, if those allegations had been permitted to stand in Lloyd's answer, there was no evidence to support them, and he was not injured by the order of the court in striking them out. But it is plain that the court treated those allegations as before it, applied the evidence to them, and held that they were not sustained; so that, even if the course of the court was somewhat irregular in striking out the allegations, and in afterwards passing upon them and the evidence offered to support them, the defendants were not thereby injured.

This view of the case renders it unnecessary to consider the question whether Harper, as the owner of the capital stock of the railway company, was concluded by the judgments obtained by the complainants against the railway company, and whether he or his assignee can go behind them, to disclose the nature of the business transactions between Harper and Preston & McHenry.

There is an assignment of error to the decree wherein it subjects the estate of Harper, in the hands of his assignee, to liability on account of stock standing in the name of W. D. Lee. But the court below found from the evidence that Lee took and held this stock for the use and benefit of Harper, and, though served, he permitted the bill, with its allegations to that effect, to go unanswered. The Ohio statute applicable to railway companies provides that 'the term 'stockholders' shall apply not only to such persons as appear by the books of the corporation to be such, but to any equitable owner of stock, although the stock appears on the books in the name of another.'

It does not appear, therefore, that the court erred in holding the same measure of liability to apply to Harper's stock standing in the name of Lee as to that standing in his own name. Nor does the objection that the decree was for an unnecessarily large amount, thus forming a basis for an inequitable division of the proceeds of the assets of Harper's estate, appear to be well founded. The amount of the decree is not, as suggested by the assignee, the joint and aggregate amount of the Harper and Lee stock, but is restricted to the aggregate amount of the judgments owned by the complainants.

Error is likewise assigned to the allowance of interest on the judgments after the date of Harper's assignment. It is claimed that, as against the estate in the hands of the assignee, interest ceased from the date of the assignment.

There is nothing before us to show that there are not funds in the hands of the assignee sufficient to pay Harper's debts in full, with interest to the date of payment; and, as it does not appear that this matter was brought to the attention of the court below when framing the decree, or at any time, we do not feel disposed to disturb the decree.

Finding no error in the record, the decree of the court below is affirmed.

The CHIEF JUSTICE, not having heard the argument, did not take part in the decision of this case.

Notes

1. The evidence given and offered as to the nature of the original transactions between defendants Harper and Preston & McHenry is stated in the opinion of the court below as follows: 'Harper testifies that the parties claimed, 'after absorbing some four hundred thousand dollars in cash of margins on wheat in Chicago,' that he owed them a balance of over two hundred thousand dollars, which he disputed, but finally settled and compromised. On the examination of Preston he was asked by Harper's counsel whether the consideration claimed to have been received by Harper for the bonds which he agreed to transfer to complainants did not grow out of dealings between Harper and complainants on the Chicago board of trade.

To the question complainants' counsel objected, and instructed the witness not to answer, and he did not answer. He was not pressed, but Harper's counsel stated, as appears by the record, that he proposed to show that the contracting parties had dealings on the Chicago board of trade; that the books of the complainants would not show the amount claimed; 'that the entire transaction was disputed and repudiated by Harper as fraudulent;' that the claim was exaggerated; and that it was in settlement of this fictitious claim that he compromised with complainants. This is all that appears in testimony, or that it was proposed to show.'