Independent School Dist. of Sioux City v. Rew
Independent School Dist. of Sioux City v. Rew
Opinion of the Court
after stating the case as. above, delivered the opinion of the court.
The act of congress of August 13, 1888 (25 Stat. 434), contains this provision:
“Nor shall any circuit or district court have cognizance of any suit, except upon foreign bills of exchange, to recover the contents of any promissory note or other chose in action in favor of any assignee, or of any subsequent holder if such instrument be payable to bearer and be not made by any corporation, unless such suit might have been prosecuted in such court to recover the said contents if no assignment or transfer had been made.”
Under this statute an action cannot be maintained in the circuit court upon an assigned instrument made by a corporation, which is not payable to bearer, unless such an action could have been maintained by the assignor. If, however, the assigned instrument is payable to the bearer, the assignee may recover in the federal court, whether his assignor could have done so or not. Lyon Co. v. Keene Five Cent Sav. Bank, 100 Fed. 337, 338, 40 C. C. A. 391, 392; Newgass v. City of New Orleans (C. C.) 33 Fed. 196; Rollins v. Chaffee Co. (C. C.) 34 Fed. 91; Wilson v. Knox Co. (C. C.) 43 Fed. 481; Cloud v. City of Sumas (C. C.) 52 Fed. 177; Benjamin v. City of New Orleans (C. C.) 71 Fed. 758. In the case now in hand the bonds were payable to the order of a citizen of the state of the 'defendant, and, because he could not have maintained an action in the federal court, no subsequent holder could do so., But the coupons, on the other hand, were payable to bearer, and were made by a municipal corporation, so that they fell within the express terms of the exception to the prohibition of the statute; and any holder of them who was a citizen of a different state from that of the plaintiff in error could lawfully maintain his action upon them in the national courts.
In this state of the case, counsel for the plaintiff in error contend that the defendant in error deprived the court below of its jurisdiction because he pleaded the cause of action on the coupons in the same counts with those upon the bonds. His petition consisted of xo counts. In each of these counts he pleaded a bond, the recitals therein, and all the unpaid coupons originally attached to it, and alleged that the bond and the coupons had been sold and transferred together to the same parties at the same times and under the same circumstances. It is difficult to conceive how this pleading could have deprived the circuit court of jurisdiction over the causes of action upon the coupons. Each coupon was a separable promise, distinct from the promises to pay the bonds and the promises to pay •the other coupons, and it gave rise to a separate cause of action. Nor was this cause of action accessory to the demand on the bond to which the coupon was attached. It was not only a separate cause of action, but a principal and primary one. City of Aurora v. West, 7 Wall. 82, 19 L. Ed. 42; Amy v. City of Dubuque, 98 U. S. 470, 473, 25 L. Ed. 228; Nesbit v. Independent Dist., 144 U. S. 610, 12 Sup. Ct. 746, 36 L. Ed. 562; Edwards v. Bates Co., 163 U. S. 269, 273, 16 Sup. Ct. 967, 41 L. Ed. 155. The amount claimed upon the
The chief complaint concerning the action of the court below, however, is that it held that the independent school district was estopped by the recitals in the bonds and in the resolution of the board of directors of the district township from defeating the coupons in the hands of an innocent purchaser either on the ground that neither the bonds nor their proceeds were used to pay judgments, or on the ground that the debt of the township exceeded the constitutional limitation when the bonds were issued. Many objections to this ruling have been presented. One of them is that the recitals in the bonds are not available to the plaintiff in an action on the coupons, and that the municipality can be estopped by them only in an action on the instruments which contain the recitals; that is to say, on the bonds themselves. But it is not indispensable to the effectiveness of an estoppel that the acts, words, or deeds which work it shall» be contained in a negotiable instrument or in any written contract which is the basis of the action. They are as fatal when found in instruments not negotiable, in writings which are not the basis of the action, when they are mere spoken words, and when they are silent and deceitful acts, as they are when they are contained in a bond or note which is the subject of the action. In Southern Minnesota Ry. Extension Co. v. St. Paul & S. C. R. Co., 55 Fed. 690, 696, 5 C. C. A. 249, 255, 12 U. S. App. 320, 331, and in Board v. Platt, 79 Fed. 567, 573, 25 C. C. A. 87, 93, 49 U. S. App. 216, 224, judgments which were not the bases of the actions were held to constitute estoppels. In Union Pac. R. Co. v. U. S., 67 Fed. 975, 15 C. C. A. 123, 32 U. S. App. 311; Naddo v. Bardon, 51 Fed. 493, 2 C. C. A. 335, 4 U. S. App. 642; Commission Co. v. Patillo, 90 Fed. 628, 631, 33 C. C. A. 194, 197, 61 U. S. App. 94, 100; and in the Omaha Bridge Cases, 51 Fed. 309, 327, 2 C. C. A. 174, 241, 10 U. S. App. 98, 188,—silence and acquiescence wrought fatal estoppels. In Illinois Trust & Savings Bank v. City of Arkansas City, 76 Fed. 271, 294, 22 C. C. A. 171, 194, 40 U. S. App. 257, 296, 34 L. R. A. 518, the acts of the city dehors the contract upon which the action was founded worked a fatal estoppel against it. And in City of Huron v. Second Ward Sav. Bank, 86 Fed. 272, 30 C. C. A. 38, 57 U. S. App. 593, 49 L. R. A. 534; Hughes Co. v. Livingston, 104 Fed. 306, 43 C. C. A. 541; Grattan Tp. v. Chilton, 97 Fed. 145, 38 C. C. A. 84; Board v. Sutliff, 97 Fed. 270, 38 C. C. A. 167; and City of South St. Paul v. Lamprecht Bros.
It is said that the recitals in the bonds are ineffectual to create an estoppel because, while they declare that they were issued under the provisions of chapter 51, they show on their face that they were not so' issued, because those provisions require the bonds to be payable to the holders of the unsatisfied judgments at the office of .the treasurer of the county issuing them, while these bonds are payable to one who held no judgments at Sioux City, Iowa,—a city without the limits of the district township,—and the coupons are payable at the office of Weare & Allison, in Sioux City, Iowa. The objection is too technical and hypercritical for serious consideration. The statute does not require the bonds to be payable to the judgment creditors, and there is no evidence that the plaintiff in error has been deprived of an opportunity to pay either the bonds or the coupons by the fact that the place of their payment was the principal city in its county, instead of at the office of its treasurer. This immaterial variance from the form prescribed by the statute neither destro)rs nor weakens the plain declaration in the bonds that they were issued under the provisions of chapter 51, nor the .conclusive estoppel which that recital produces.
Finally the old objections that neither the district township nor the officers had any power to issue the bonds or to make the recitals, that the recitals do not estop the township from defeating the coupons on the grounds that there were no judgments, and that the proceeds of the bonds were not applied to the payment of the judgments, which have been so many times urged upon and discussed by this court,' are again rehearsed. To discuss them would be but to repeat former opinions of this court which have been again and again affirmed, and it would seem to be sufficient here to briefly state the propositions long since established by the decisions of the supreme court and of this court which render these objections of counsel for the plaintiff in error untenable. The affairs of the district township were, intrusted to its board of directors to manage, direct, and control. Code Iowa 1897, § 2745. It was the duty of one of the members of this board (its president) to appear in behalf of the corporation in all actions brought against it, and to sign all warrants, orders,
Notwithstanding all this, counsel for the plaintiff in error earnestly argue that this district is not ^stopped from proving that the issue
_ Counsel for plaintiff in error have invoked the conceded rule that the national courts uniformly follow the construction of the constitution and statutes of a state adopted'by its highest judicial tribunal in all cases that involve no question of general or commercial law and no question of right under the constitution and laws of the nation (Madden v. Lancaster Co., 65 Fed. 188, 192, 12 C. C. A. 566, 573, 27 U. S. App. 528, 535, 536), have cited the opinions of the supreme court of Iowa in Holliday v. Hilderbrandt, 97 Iowa, 177, 66 N. W. 89; Independent Dist. of Rock Rapids v. Society for Savings, 98 Iowa, 581, 67 N. W. 370; First Nat. Bank of Decorah v. Doon Dist. Tp., 86 Iowa, 330, 53 N. W. 301, 41 Am. St. Rep. 489; Mosher v.
The judgment below is affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. OF SIOUX CITY, IOWA v. REW
- Cited By
- 37 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. Jurisdiction—Joinder of Jurisdictional and Nonjurisdictional Causes —Federal Courts. A national court is not deprived of jurisdiction of causes of action of Which it is authorized to take cognizance by the fact that the plaintiff joins with them in the same action and petition other causes of which it. can take no jurisdiction. 8. Same. A national court may have jurisdiction of causes of action upon coupons made by a municipal corporation and payable to bearer, although the original holders conld not have maintained actions upon them; and the fact that canses of action upon bonds payable to tlie order of an individual, of which tbe court cánnot take jurisdiction, are joined witli them in tbe same petition or action, does not deprive tbe court of jurisdiction. 3. Estoppel — Basis of not Confined to Contents of Writing Sued on. An estoppel is as conclusive and fatal when founded on statements or representations without, as when it is founded upon those within, a negotiable instrument wbicb is tbe subject of tbe action. A corporation may be estopped from defeating an action upon coupons by its recitals in tbe bonds. 4 Municipal Bonds—Estoppel by Recitals. If the laws are such that there might under any state of facts or circumstances be lawful power in a municipality or quasi municipality to issue its bonds, it may by recitals therein estop itself from denying that those facts or circumstances existed, unless the constitution'or tbe act under which tbe bonds are issued prescribes some public record as tbe test of tbe existence of some of those facts or circumstances. 5. Same—When Certificate of Officers Effects. When a municipal body has lawful authority to issue bonds on tbe condition that certain facts exist or certain acts have been done, and tbe law intrusts tbe power to, and imposes tbe duty upon, its officers to ascertain, determine, and certify tbe existence of'these facts at tbe time of issuing tbe bonds, their certificate will estop tbe municipality, as against a bona fide bolder of tbe bonds, from proving its falsity to defeat them. 6. Same—Funding Bonds—Recital Estops from Denying Validity of Debt Funded. A municipal corporation is estopped from defeating an action by an innocent purchaser to collect its negotiable bonds which recite that they were issued for the purpose of funding the judgments, bonds, warrants, or floating debt of tbe corporation on tbe ground that the apparent debt they were issued to satisfy was invalid or fictitious. 7. Same—Recitals Estop from Denying Proper Application of Proceeds. A municipal corporation is estopped from defeating an action upon its negotiable securities by an innocent purchaser on the ground that, while they appear on their face to have been issued for a lawful purpose, their proceeds were diverted by its officers to an unlawful purpose. 8. Funding Bonds Create No Debt. Funding bonds neither create nor increase the indebtedness of a municipality, but merely change its form. 9. Certificate of Issue of Funding Bonds in Pursuance of Legislative Authority—Effect. Tbe certificate upon the face of municipal bonds that they have been issued in iiursuance of legislative authority for the purpose of funding tbe indebtedness of tbe municipality is a declaration that they have been issued for the purpose of funding a valid debt in tlie method prescribed by tbe law, and that they neither create nor increase any indebtedness of tbe municipality; and, as against a bona fide purchaser, they estop tbe municipality from denying this declaration. 10. Excessive Indebtedness Immaterial to Purchaser of Funding Bonds. . When an innocent purchaser buys of others than tbe municipality and its agents its negotiable bonds, which recite that they were issued to fund the debt of the municipality, tbe question of excessive indebtedness does not arise, and tbe purchaser is not required to’ consider or inquire concerning it. 11. Questions of General and Commercial Law—Decisions of State Courts not Controlling. Tbe decisions of state courts upon questions of commercial law are not controlling in tbe federal courts. It is a duty of those courts, wbicb they may not renounce or disregard, to consider and decide for themselves questions of general and commercial law presented to them-in cases within their jurisdiction. (Syllabus by the Court.)