Estoppel is a judicial device in common law legal systems whereby a court may prevent, or "estop" a person from making assertions or from going back on his or her word; the person being sanctioned is "estopped". Estoppel may prevent someone from bringing a particular claim. Legal doctrines of estoppel are based in both common law and equity.
Estoppel in English law is a doctrine that may be used in certain situations to prevent a person from relying upon certain rights, or upon a set of facts which is different from an earlier set of facts.
The history of Roman Law can be divided into three systems of procedure: that of legis actiones, the formulary system, and cognitio extra ordinem. The periods in which these systems were in use overlapped one another and did not have definitive breaks, but it can be stated that the legis actio system prevailed from the time of the XII Tables until about the end of the 2nd century BC, that the formulary procedure was primarily used from the last century of the Republic until the end of the classical period, and that of cognitio extra ordinem was in use in post-classical times.
Griffith v. Godey, 113 U.S. 89 (1885), was a suit regarding equity of defendants who were trustees of certain property that the complainant was interested in, and which they received and disposed of. The complainant, Ellis Griffith, and his brother, John Griffith, were partners, engaged in the business of cattle raising, and resided in Kern County, California, where they occupied what is called a stock range, a tract of country on which cattle are permitted to roam and graze. It may be termed the feeding ground-the pasture land of the cattle. Although the title to the land constituting the range was in the United States, and the land was not inclosed, the right of the Griffiths to use it for the pasturage of their cattle was recognized and respected by their neighbors and other stock raisers in the county. It had excellent springs, furnishing water to cattle roaming over a large extent of country, and was capable of supporting from one to three thousand head. The property, therefore was of great value.
Ackley School District v. Hall, 113 U.S. 135 (1885), was a suit to recover principal and interest claimed to be due the defendant on negotiable bonds issued by the plaintiff.
Anderson County Commissioners v. Beal, 113 U.S. 227 (1885), was a United States Supreme Court case.
Sully v. Drennan, 113 U.S. 287 (1885), was an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of Iowa remanding to the state court a case which had been removed from the state into the circuit court. The suit was brought originally in the district court of the state by James N. Drennan and others, taxpayers of Prairie Township, in the County of Mahaska.
Avegno v. Schmidt, 113 U.S. 293 (1885), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that title to property confiscated during the American Civil War was properly held by the mortgagor.
Pneumatic Gas Co. v. Berry, 113 U.S. 322 (1885), was a case regarding a decree whereby a director of a corporation can be released by that corporation of all claims, equitable or otherwise, arising out of transactions under a contract between the corporation and the director made in excess of its corporate powers is valid, if made in good faith and without fraud or concealment.
Chicago & Northwestern R. Co. v. Crane, 113 U.S. 424 (1885), was a suit brought by a taxpayer and resident in the Town of Polk City, Iowa, on behalf of himself and all other resident voters, taxpayers and property holders, commenced suit in a state court of Iowa against two companies, praying for a peremptory writ of mandamus to compel the reconstruction and operation of the old line after the Chicago and North Western Railway, an Illinois corporation. changed the line and made it avoid the city, constructing a branch to the latter. C&NW Railway was leased the line by the D&M Railroad Company, an Iowa Corporation, who had received from a township in Iowa, in consideration of its agreement to construct and maintain a railroad to a city in the township, the proceeds of a special tax and a conveyance of a large amount of swamp lands. It constructed the railroad and operating it for a time before leasing it to C&N Railway.
Ultramares Corporation v. Touche, 174 N.E. 441 (1932) is a US tort law case regarding negligent misstatement, decided by Cardozo, C.J. It contained the now famous line on "floodgates" that the law should not admit "to a liability in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class."
Chase v. Curtis, 113 U.S. 452 (1885), was a suit brought under the provisions of §12 of the Act of the Legislature of New York of February 17, 1848, as amended June 7, 1875, where trustees of corporations formed for manufacturing, mining, mechanical, or chemical purposes are made liable for debts of the company on failure to file the reports of capital and of debts required by that section, is penal in its character, and must be construed with strictness as against those sought to be subjected to its liabilities. Suit was brought to recover from the trustees of such a corporation the amount of a judgment against the corporation, the judgment roll is not competent evidence to establish a debt due from the corporation to the plaintiff.
A claim in tort against a corporation formed under that act, as amended, is not a debt of the company for which the trustees may become liable jointly and severally under the provisions of the Act. In a proceeding to enforce a liability created by a state statute, the courts of the United States give to a judgment of a state court the same effect, either as evidence or as cause of action, which is given to it in like proceedings in the courts of the state whose laws are invoked in the enforcement.
The complaint in this action, after alleging that the plaintiff in error was a citizen of Pennsylvania, and the defendants citizens of New York, proceeded as follows:
"Wherefore the plaintiffs demand judgment against the above-named defendants in the sum of $40,828.97, with interest on $40,500.00 from the 30th day of July, 1874, and on $328.97 from the 3d day of October, 1874, besides the costs and disbursements of this action."
To this complaint the defendants severally demurred on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The demurrer was sustained and judgment rendered in favor of the defendants dismissing the complaint, to reverse which this writ of error is prosecuted.
The statute on which the action is founded is as follows:
"SECTION 1. The twelfth section of the 'Act to authorize the formation of corporations for manufacturing, mining, mechanical, or chemical purposes,' passed February 17, 1848, as said section was amended by chapter 657 of the Laws of 1871, is hereby further amended, so that section 12 shall read as follows:"
"§ 12. Every such company shall, within twenty days from the first day of January, if a year from the time of the filing of the certificate of incorporation shall then have expired, and if so long a time shall not have expired, then within twenty days from the first day of January in each year after the expiration of a year from the time of filing such certificate, make a report, which shall be published in some newspaper published in the town, city, or village, or, if there be no newspaper published in said town, city, or village, then in some newspaper published nearest the place where the business of the company is carried on, which shall state the amount of capital, and of the proportion actually paid in, and the amount of its existing debts, which report shall be signed by the president and a majority of the trustees, and shall be verified by the oath of the president or secretary of said company, and filed in the office of the clerk of the county where the business of the company shall be carried on, and if any of said companies shall fail so to do, all the trustees of the company shall be jointly and severally liable for all the debts of the company then existing, and for all that shall be contracted before such report shall be made. But whenever under this section a judgment shall be recovered against a trustee severally, all the trustees of the company shall contribute a ratable share of the amount paid by such trustee on such judgment, and such trustee shall have a right of action against his co-trustees, jointly or severally, to recover from them their proportion of the amount so paid on such judgment, provided that nothing in this act contained shall affect any action now pending.
It is finally insisted that a judgment against the corporation, although founded upon a tort, becomes ipso facto a debt by contract, being a contract of record or a specialty in the nature of a contract. But we have already seen that the settled course of decision in the New York Court of Appeals rejects the judgment against the corporation as either evidence or ground of liability against the trustees, and founds the latter upon the obligation of the corporation on which the judgment itself rests. And it was decided by this Court in the case of Louisiana v. New Orleans, 109 U. S. 285, that a liability for a tort, created by statute, although reduced to judgment by a recovery for the damages suffered, did not thereby become a debt by contract in the sense of the Constitution of the United States forbidding state legislation impairing its obligation, for the reason that the term 'contract' is used in the Constitution in its ordinary sense as signifying the agreement of two or more minds, for considerations proceeding from one to the other, to do or not to do certain acts. Mutual assent to its terms is of its very essence."
The same definition applies in the present instance, and excludes the liability of the defendants, as trustees of the corporation, for its torts, although reduced to judgment.
The court found no error in the judgment of the circuit court, and it was accordingly affirmed.
Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Cheyenne, 113 U.S. 516 (1885), was an appeal from the Supreme Court of the Territory of Wyoming regarding a bill charging that the collection of an illegal tax would involve the plaintiff in a multiplicity of suits as to the title of lots being laid out and sold, which would prevent their sale, and which would cloud the title to all his real estate, states a case for relief in equity.
Boyer v. Boyer, 113 U.S. 689 (1885), was a suit in error brought in a state court of Pennsylvania for an injunction restraining the commissioners of Schuylkill County from levying a county tax for the year 1883 upon certain shares in the Pennsylvania National Bank, an association organized under the National Banking Act. The suit proceeds upon the ground that such levy violates the act of Congress prescribing conditions upon state taxation of national bank shares in this, that "other moneyed capital in the hands of individual citizens" of that county is exempted by the laws of Pennsylvania from such taxation. A demurrer to the bill was sustained and the suit was dismissed. Upon appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, that judgment was affirmed on the ground that the laws of the state under which the defendants sought to justify the taxation were not repugnant to the act of Congress.
Baltic Shipping Company v Dillon, the Mikhail Lermontov case, is a leading Australian contract law case, on the incorporation of exclusion clauses and damages for breach of contract or restitution for unjust enrichment.
Cooper Manufacturing Co. v. Ferguson, 113 U.S. 727 (1885), was a suit regarding the legitimacy of a sale of a steam engine and other machinery in the State of Ohio.
Gregory v. Hartley, 113 U.S. 742 (1885), was a case in error to the Supreme Court of the State of Nebraska where it was decided and reaffirmed that the words "term at which said cause could be first tried and before the trial thereof," Act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, § 3, 18 Stat. 471, mean the first term at which the cause is in law triable, i.e., in which it would stand for trial if the parties had taken the usual steps as to pleadings and other preparations. Babbitt v. Clark, 103 U.S. 808, and Pullman Palace Car Co. v. Speck, ante, 113 U.S. 87.
Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 is an act in India dating from the British colonial rule, that is still in force largely unchanged.
Moses v Macferlan (1760) 2 Bur 1005 is a foundational case in the law of restitution holding that in certain circumstances such as when money is paid by mistake, for failed consideration or under oppression; the law will allow the money to be recovered.
The Northern Liberty Market, later called Convention Hall Market and Center Market, was located on the east side of 5th Street NW, between K and L, in the present-day Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It operated from 1875 to 1963.
