Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway Co. v. United States

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Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued January 9, 1885
Decided January 26, 1885
Full case nameNashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. United States
Citations113 U.S. 261 ( more )
5 S. Ct. 460; 28 L. Ed. 971
Court membership
Chief Justice
Morrison Waite
Associate Justices
Samuel F. Miller  · Stephen J. Field
Joseph P. Bradley  · John M. Harlan
William B. Woods  · Stanley Matthews
Horace Gray  · Samuel Blatchford
Case opinion
MajorityGray, joined by unanimous

Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway Co. v. United States, 113 U.S. 261 (1885), regarded a suit brought by the United States against a railroad company, Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, to recover monies paid for delivery of United States mail in Tennessee from March 31 to June 8, 1861. [1]

Contents

Justice Gray delivered the opinion of the court, which stated:

The grounds on which the appellant contends that the claim now asserted is not barred by the decree rendered in 1871 in the former suit in the circuit court resolve themselves into these two: first, that it is found as a fact that this claim was not litigated in that suit; second, that it could not have been considered in that suit, because the facts show that the appellant aided in sustaining the rebellion, and therefore, as matter of law, payment to it of any claim against the United States was prohibited by the joint resolution of March 2, 1867, No. 46, and was not authorized until the passage of the Act of March 3, 1877, c. 105, more than five years after that decree. 14 Stat. 571; 19 Stat. 344, 362.

But the insurmountable difficulty is that the former decree appears upon its face to have been rendered by consent of the parties, and could not therefore be reversed, even on appeal. Courts of chancery generally hold that from a decree by consent no appeal lies. 2 Daniell, Ch.Prac. c. 32, § 1; French v. Shotwell, 5 Johns.Ch. 555; Winchester v. Winchester, 121 Mass. 127. Although that rule has not prevailed in this Court under the terms of the acts of Congress regulating its appellate jurisdiction, yet a decree which appears by the record to have been rendered by consent is always affirmed, without considering the merits of the cause. A fortiori, neither party can deny its effect as a bar of a subsequent suit on any claim included in the decree.

The decree of 1871 states that

"In and by virtue of an act of Congress in that behalf, a compromise of all the matters in litigation between the parties has been entered into and fully consummated upon the following terms, conditions, and stipulations:"

That one of the considerations for the sum of $1,000,000 thereby agreed to be paid and secured by the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad Company to the United States was "the settlement, satisfaction, and discharge of all the mutual claims and accounts between the parties, as they existed on the first day of June 1871;" that by the terms of the compromise,

"there was due from the defendant to the United States on the first day of June 1871, for and on account of the claim set forth in the bill of complaint, after allowing all credits thereon for services rendered by the defendant to and for the use of the complainant for mail service or military transportation or on any other account prior to the day last aforesaid a balance amounting to the sum of one million dollars," and that by consent of the parties, and in accordance with the compromise, it is so decreed.

The act of Congress to which the decree refers authorized the Secretary of War, with the advice of the counsel for the United States in that suit, "to compromise, adjust, and settle the same upon such terms, as to amount and time of payment, as may be just and equitable, and best calculated to protect the interests of the government."

Act of March 3, 1871, c. 109, 16 Stat. 473. The terms of the compromise, as set forth in and confirmed by the decree, expressly included all credits for services rendered by the railroad company to and for the use of the United States, for mail service or on any other account, prior to June 1, 1871. The claim now asserted was for such a service, and was not the less within the terms and effect of the compromise and decree, because the law at that time prohibited its payment to the railroad company.

The judgment was affirmed.

See also

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In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. A collective settlement is a settlement of multiple similar legal cases. The term also has other meanings in the context of law. Structured settlements provide for future periodic payments, instead of a one time cash payment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway</span> Defunct railway company in the southeastern United States (1851-1957)

The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway was a railway company that operated in the U.S. states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. It began as the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, chartered in Nashville on December 11, 1845, built to 5 ft gauge and was the first railway to operate in the state of Tennessee. By the turn of the twentieth century, the NC&StL grew into one of the most important railway systems in the southern United States.

Pullman Palace Car Co. v. Speck, 113 U.S. 84 (1885), was an appeals case from the circuit court for the Northern district of Illinois a case that had been removed from that court. The appeal was on the grounds that while a party who has a case for removal is not put to his election to exercise or abandon the right to remove at the moment of entering his appearance, he is not permitted unreasonably to delay this election during all the period incident to the preparation of the case, until both parties find themselves in condition to go to trial at law.

Central Railroad & Banking Co. of Ga. v. Pettus, 113 U.S. 116 (1885), was an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Middle district of Alabama in favor of the appellees, Pettus & Dawson and Watts & Sons, adjudging them entitled to the sum of, 161.21, and interest thereon at eight percent per annum from March 7, 1881, with lien, to secure its payment, upon the roadbed, depots, side tracks, turnouts, trestles, and bridges owned and used by the appellants, corporations of the State of Georgia, in operating the railroad formerly belonging to the Montgomery and West Point Railroad Company, an Alabama corporation, and which extends from Montgomery to West Point with a branch from Opelika to Columbus. This property was directed to be exposed to sale unless within a given time the said amount was paid. This suit is the outgrowth of certain litigation in the courts of Alabama relating to the before-mentioned and other railroad property in which the appellants are interested.

Central R. Co. of N. J. v. Mills, 113 U.S. 249 (1885), involved a case where the Court of Claims had dismissed a petition of the claimants, regarding the rejection of two items sued for: (1) labor done and materials furnished by the claimants in constructing the coffer dams, and in performing the work necessarily connected therewith and preliminary to the masonry work for the piers and abutments, (2) loss and damages resulting to the claimants in consequence of the reduction of the dimensions of the piers and abutments made subsequently to the making of the contract.

Sully v. Drennan, 113 U.S. 287 (1885), was an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of Iowa in the United States remanding to the state court a case which had been removed from the state into the circuit court.

St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. Berry, 113 U.S. 465 (1885), was a writ of error to review the action of the Supreme Court of Arkansas in refusing to restrain officers of that state from levying a tax on property of the plaintiff in error.

Morgan v. United States, 113 U.S. 476 (1885), was a case involving several judgments of the United States Court of Claims in four cases against the United States for the payment of United States bonds known as "five-twenty bonds."

Provident Institution for Savings v. Mayor of Jersey City, 113 U.S. 506 (1885), was a bill in equity filed in the Court of Chancery of New Jersey by the appellant, to foreclose two mortgages given to it on a certain lot in Jersey City, New Jersey by Michael Nugent and wife, and another person.

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.

Peugh v. Davis, 113 U.S. 542 (1885), was a suit in equity for redeeming unoccupied and unenclosed city lots from a mortgage, continued from a case brought to the high court during the October 1877 term, the question then was whether certain instruments of writing, made by Peugh to Davis constituted an absolute conveyance of lots in the District of Columbia or were in the nature of a mortgage security for loan of money. The court was of opinion that, on all the facts of the case, the latter was the true construction of the transaction between the parties. Respondent defended against complainant's claim to redeem by setting up that the alleged mortgage was an absolute conveyance. This being decided adversely, held that, in accounting as mortgagee in constructive possession, he was not liable for a temporary speculative rise in the value of the tract, which subsequently declined—both during the time of such possession.

St. Louis v. Myers, 113 U.S. 566 (1885), was a motion to dismiss for want of a federal question to give jurisdiction regarding Acts that admitted Missouri into the Union while leaving the rights of riparian owners on the Mississippi River to be settled according to the principles of state law and relinquishing to the City of St. Louis the rights of the United States in wharves and thoroughfares, which did not authorize the city to impair the rights of other riparian proprietors by extending streets into the river.

Brown v. United States, 113 U.S. 568 (1885), was an appeal from the Court of Claims regarding one James Brown, the intestate of the appellant, who was a boatswain in the United States Navy. The petition in this case was filed against the United States by the administratrix of his estate in the Court of Claims to recover a balance of pay which she alleged was due to Brown at his death.

Pearce v. Ham, 113 U.S. 585 (1885), was an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois regarding a bill filed by Charles I. Ham, the appellee, against Isaac N. Pearce and Andrew J. Kuykendall, the appellants. Originally, one Joseph K. Frick contracted with the County Court of Johnson County in the State of Illinois, where he agreed to build, according to certain plans and specifications, a courthouse for said county at Vienna, the county seat, furnishing the material and completing it by the first Monday of September 1870, in consideration whereof the county court agreed to pay him $38,357 in the bonds of Johnson county, bearing ten percent interest, and due in six years. Frick never did any work on the building, and, owing to some misunderstanding with the county court, abandoned the contract and told Kuykendall that he might go on and build the courthouse if he chose to do so. On September 9, 1869, Kuykendall, as the agent and attorney in fact of Frick, assigned the contract of the latter to Ham and Pearce, Ham being the appellee, and Pearce one of the appellants, who had formed a partnership for the purpose of building the courthouse under said contract.

California Artificial Stone Paving Co. v. Molitor, 113 U.S. 609 (1885), involved a bill that was filed by the appellant against the appellee complaining that the latter was infringing on a letters patent granted to one John J. Schillinger, and which had been assigned for the State of California to the complainant.

Kansas Pacific R. Co. v. Dunmeyer, 113 U.S. 629 (1885), was a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Kansas. The action was brought in that court on a covenant of warranty of title to two pieces of land in a deed of conveyance made by the Kansas Pacific Railroad Company to Dunmeyer. The Pacific Railroad Acts generally allowed railroads to sell public land adjacent to their routes as part of a land grant to raise funds but made an exception for land that already had a homestead filed. G. B. Dunmeyer claimed he purchased land that already had an existing claim.

Camp v. United States, 113 U.S. 648 (1885), was an action brought by the appellant on April 13, 1869, to recover a balance alleged to be due as compensation for collecting and delivering to the United States a large amount of cotton in bales which was captured and abandoned property within the meaning of the acts of Congress. He claimed to have performed the services in question under an arrangement or agreement with an agent of the US Treasury Department which the Secretary of the Treasury subsequently recognized as a valid contract with the government. He admits certain payments on his claim, and asks judgment for the further sum of $80,000. The court below dismissed his petition.

United States v. Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co., 113 U.S. 711 (1885), regarded a suit that was brought to foreclose mortgages given to secure bonds issued by the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railroad Company. A final decree of foreclosure having been passed, the mortgaged property was sold, and the sale was confirmed by the court. The United States intervened by petition, and asked that certain sums, alleged to be due to the government on account of taxes, be first paid out of the proceeds.

Carter v. Burr, 113 U.S. 737 (1885), was a case regarding a promissory note that was held by the appellee which secured by mortgage of premises in the City of Washington, DC to the appellant, to decide whether other transactions regarding the property would pay this note, or if it would instead remain in force, along with the right to participate in the proceeds arising from a sale under the mortgage.

The McMinnville and Manchester Railroad Company was chartered by an Act of the legislature of the State of Tennessee on February 4, 1850. Under this charter, the railroad company built a line of railroad from McMinnville, Tennessee. southwesterly through Manchester, Tennessee. to Tullahoma, Tennessee, where it connected with the railroad line of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad Company.

References

  1. Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway Co. v. United States, 113 U.S. 261 (1885).