Franklin County v. German Savings Bank/Opinion of the Court

by Henry Billings Brown

United States Supreme Court

142 U.S. 93

Franklin County  v.  German Savings Bank

As both parties claim an estoppel by virtue of the decree in the equity suit between the parties to this suit, it only becomes necessary to consider the effect of this decree. It contains two separate and distinct findings: First. So far as the nine bonds held by the German Savings Bank, and issued under the act of November 6, 1849, were concerned, the decree pronounced them to be void; and as to them the injunction was made perpetual. From this part of the decree the bank appealed to this court, by which the decree was affirmed. 128 U.S. 526, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 159. Second. As to the eighteen bonds issued under the act of 1861, and the coupons cut from two other bonds issued under the same act, aslo held by the German Savings Bank, and purporting on their face to be of the series issued under the charter of said Belleville & Eldorado Railroad Company, approved February 22, 1861, the decree adjudged in favor of the defendant bank, and that the said several bonds, and the coupons thereof, were legal and valid obligations against the county of Franklin; and as to this series the injunction was dissolved and the complainant's bill dismissed. No appeal was taken from this part of the decree by the county of Franklin, but it now insists that these bonds are void for the same reasons that the bonds issued under the act of November 6, 1849, were adjudged to be void, namely, because both series were issued pursuant to the same vote, and subject to the same conditions.

The record of the equity suit does not show clearly the ground upon which the court based its distinction between the two classes of bonds; nor is it necessary to be ascertained here. It is sufficient for the purposes of this suit to know that the validity of these bonds was directly put in issue by the pleadings, and determined adversely to the county. The plaintiff alleged in its bill that these bonds were invalid by reason of the non-compliance of the road with certain conditions precedent upon which they were issued, setting up with great particularity all the proceedings prior to the issue of the bonds; reciting the laws under which they were claimed to have been authorized; and demanding their cancellation and surrender upon the ground that the acts of the county officers were unauthorized and void, and the laws under which they were issued unconstitutional. The entire question of their validity was presented and tried upon the merits, and the court could not have dismissed the bill as to these bonds without holding that they were valid, and the further finding that the several bonds and coupons thereof 'are valid and legal obligations' added nothing to the force of the decree dismissing the bill.

The defendant's position in this connection is that as the entire record, taken together, shows that these bonds were void, this court ought not to treat the decree of the court below, adjudging them to be valid, as res adjudicata. It is true that there are certain authorities to the effect that in the case of deeds, if the truth plainly appears on the face of the deed, there is, generally speaking, no estoppel, meaning simply, as stated by Mr. Bigelow, (Bigelow, Estop. 351,) 'that all parts of the deed are to be construed together, and that if an allegation in the deed which alone would work an estoppel upon the parties is explained in another part of the deed, or perhaps another deed to which reference is made for the purpose, there is ordinarily no estoppel.' Lord Coke also states certain exceptions to the conclusive effect of records, one of these being, 'where the truth appears in the same record, as where the defendant is sued by the wrong name, and enters into a bail-bond prout the writ, as he must, and then put in bail by his right name, he who was arrested is not estopped from pleading in abatement; or where the record shows that the judgment relied on as an estoppel has been reversed in error.' But we know of no case which goes to the extent of holding that, where a court having complete jurisdiction of the case has pronounced a decree upon a certain issue, such issue may be retried in a collateral action, even although the evidence upon which the case is heard is sent up with the record. If this were possible, then in every such case where a judgment or decree is pleaded by way of estoppel, and the record shows the evidence upon which it was rendered, the court in which the estoppel was pleaded would have the power to retry the case, and determine whether a different judgment ought not to have been rendered. The case of Brownsville v. Loague, 129 U.S. 493, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 327, has perhaps gone as far in the direction indicated by the defendant as any case reported in the books; but it is far from being an authority for the position assumed here. That was a petition for a mandamus to enforce the collection of judgments of a circuit court upon certain bonds which this court had held to be invalid. The court denied the application of the relator upon the ground that, in his pleadings, he did not rely exclusively upon the judgments, but opened the facts which attended the judgments for the purpose of counting upon a certain act of the legislature as furnishing the remedy which he sought, and that by so doing he, in effect, asked the court to order the levy of a tax to pay the coupons, and relied upon the judgments principally as creating an estoppel of a denial of the power to do so. 'Thus invited,' said the chief justice, 'to look through the judgments to the alleged contracts on which they are founded, and finding them invalid for want of power, must we nevertheless concede to the judgments themselves such effect, by way of estoppel, as to entitle the plaintiff, ex debito justitiae, to a writ commanding the levy of taxes under a statute which was not in existence when these bonds were issued? * * * But where application is made to collect judgments by process not contained in themselves, and requiring, to be sustained, reference to the alleged cause of action upon which they are founded, the aid of the court should not be granted when upon the face of the record it appears, not that mere error supervened in the rendition of such judgments, but that they rest upon no cause of action whatever.' This, however, does not touch the question of the binding effect of judgments when offered in evidence in a distinct and collateral action. We know of no case holding their probative effect to be anything else than conclusive. Had the plaintiff county desired further to test the validity of these bonds, it was its duty to have appealed from this decree, as did the bank with respect to the bonds which that court held to be invalid, when the question of the validity of both issues could have been heard and determined by this court.

There was no error in the finding of the court below, and its judgment must be affirmed.

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