Loudon v. Taxing District/Opinion of the Court

by Morrison Waite

United States Supreme Court

104 U.S. 771

Loudon  v.  Taxing District

The questions in this case are,--

1. Whether, because the city of Memphis neglected to pay the debts it owed the appellant when they fell due, it must make good to him the losses he sustained on that account through exactions of extraordinary interest and discounts on sales of securities to raise money to meet his own obligations; and,

2. Whether, upon the facts as shown, a decree should be passed rescinding the contract under which the appellant received bonds to the city in settlement of what was due him on certain of his claims.

As to the first of these questions, it is sufficient to say that all damages for delay in the payment of money owing upon contract are provided for in the allowance of interest, which is in the nature of damages for withholding money that is due. The law assumes that interest is the measure of all such damages.

As to the second, we are satisfied that the only contract which was entered into by the parties is that expressed in the resolution of the city council accepting the proposition of the appellant to take bonds of the city in payment of what was due him on the designated claims. This required the city only to set apart, for the payment of the judgments which the appellant held, three tenths of the specified tax levied to defray the expenses of the city for the year 1872. That was done, and large sums of money collected and paid over under the appropriation. There was no fraud in the inception of the contract. The value of the bonds accepted by the appellant was well understood by him, and it is not denied that the officers of the city at the time acted in good faith. The failure of the city since 1874 to keep its contract and pay over the taxes of 1872 collected after that time is certainly no ground for setting aside the contract altogether. The more appropriate relief certainly is that which was granted; to wit, provision for the payment of the balance that remains due out of the future collections of taxes levied or to be levied in that behalf.

The city took an appeal from that part of the decree which gave the appellant affirmative relief; but that appeal has been dismissed, under the ninth rule, for want of prosecution. The case stands here now as though no such appeal had been taken. The city can, therefore, only be heard in support of the decree as it stands. This has long been the settled rule in this court. Canter v. American and Ocean Insurance Companies, 3 Pet. 307; Chittenden v. Brewster, 2 Wall. 191; The Stephen Morgan, 94 U.S. 599. An appeal brings up for review only that which was decided adversely to the appellant. It is unnecessary to determine what might have been done in this case if the appeal of the city had not been formally dismissed for want of prosecution.

Decree affirmed.

Notes