Meriwether v. Garrett/Dissent Strong

by William Strong

United States Supreme Court

102 U.S. 472

Meriwether  v.  Garrett

MR. JUSTICE STRONG, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE SWAYNE and MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.

The several bills of the complainants were consolidated in the Circuit Court, and, so far as it appears, without objection. They are, therefore, to be considered as one case. The important facts averred in the bills and confessed by the demurrer are the following:--

The complainants are creditors of the city of Memphis. For a part of their claims they had recovered judgments against the city before the bills were filed, and had obtained writs of mandamus to enforce the levy of taxes to satisfy the judgments. In obedience to these writs the proper city authorities had levied the taxes required, but had neglected to collect them, in large measure, and, even when a portion of the taxes had been collected, had failed to appropriate the money collected to the payment of the judgments for which it had been specially levied, and to which alone it could be lawfully applied. Some of the money thus collected remained on deposit. These levies were made during the years 1875, 1876, 1877, and 1878, the city ordinances by which they were ordered specifying the amounts and the parties for whom the taxes were levied. The complainants were also large general creditors of the city, holding its obligations, upon which no judgments had been recovered.

Besides the special levies, made as above stated, the city authorities had made others for the purpose of paying interest on the city debt and for general uses. These taxes also remained uncollected. Meanwhile the city had nothing liable to execution at law, and no property except what it held for public uses (in distinction from private), such as public municipal buildings, parks, streets, fire apparatus, &c. It was insolvent.

Such was the situation when these bills were filed. Their object was to obtain the appointment of a receiver to take possession of the assets of the city (including the collected but not appropriated taxes, as well as the claims and bills for past-due and uncollected taxes), and to collect the same with a view to their being applied according to equity and legal right.

The principal one of the consolidated bills was filed on the twenty-eighth day of January, 1879, by Garrett et al. Almost immediately after it was filed,-the next day, indeed,-an act of the legislature of the State was passed, approved Jan. 31, 1879, by which the charter of the city was repealed, all power of taxation in any form was withdrawn from its authorities, and all persons holding office under the repealed acts, which constituted the charter and endowed it with power, were prohibited from attempting to exercise any of the functions of their offices. The public buildings, squares, promenades, wharves, streets, alleys, parks, fire-engines, hose and carriages, engineer instruments, and all other property, real and personal, theretofore used for municipal purposes, were declared to be transferred to the control and custody of the State, to remain public property, as it always had been, for the uses to which it had theretofore been applied. The act contained no reservation of the rights of creditors, and said nothing of any outstanding taxes which had been levied but not collected, and it was declared to take effect from and after its passage.

On the same day, Jan. 29, 1879, another act of the legislature was passed, approved Jan. 31, 1879, by which the identical territory that had been embraced in the territorial limits of the city of Memphis was erected into what the act calls a 'taxing district.' The act declared that the necessary taxes for the support of the government thus established should be imposed directly by the General Assembly of the State and not otherwise. It established a board of fire and police commissioners, a committee on ordinances, or local laws, to be known as the legislative council, consisting of the commissioners of the fire and police boards and the supervisors of the board of public works. It established also a board of health, and a board of public works. It prohibited the commissioners from issuing any evidences of indebtedness, and declared that no property, real or personal, held by them for public use, should ever be subject to execution, or attachment, or seizure under any legal process for any debt created by said commissioners, and that all taxes due, or moneys in the hands of the county trustee, or on deposit, should be exempt from seizure under attachment, execution, garnishment, or other legal process. The act also declared that neither the commissioners, nor the trustee, nor the new government created by the act, should pay or be liable for any debt created by the extinct corporation (i. e. the city of Memphis), and that none of the taxes collected under the act should ever be used for the payment of any of the said debts. The act was declared to take effect from its passage. Its fourteenth section, as subsequently amended, declared that all the property of the city mentioned as transferred to the State by the act first mentioned should be thereby transferred to the custody and control of the board of commissioners of the taxing district, and that all indebtedness for taxes, or otherwise, whether in litigation or not, due the municipality, namely, the city, should vest in and become the property of the State, to be disposed of as should thereafter be provided by law.

These two acts were passed, as has been noticed, on the 29th of January, 1879, and approved two days thereafter.

On the 7th of February, 1879, the complainants, Garrett et al., filed, by leave of the court, an amended and supplemental bill, averring what had been charged in the original, and setting forth, inter alia, these acts of the legislature, denying their constitutionality, and praying, as in the original bill, for the appointment of a receiver, and praying also that the bill might be taken as a general creditors' bill for all creditors who might come in within a limited time and prove their claims.

The other bills were filed severally on Jan. 30, 1879, Feb. 3, 8, and 10, next following, and on the 12th of February the cases were consolidated, and T. J. Latham was appointed a receiver in accordance with the prayer of the complainants. He gave the required bond on the same day, and took immediate possession of the tax-books, bills, &c., of the city.

Subsequently, on the 13th of March, 1879, the legislature of the State passed another act, the first section whereof directed the governor to appoint an officer for municipal corporations whose charters had been repealed (the city of Memphis being the only one), to be known as a receiver and back-tax collector. Subsequent sections required such receiver and collector to take possession of all books, papers, and documents pertaining to the assessment and collection of the taxes embraced by the act; namely, the taxes due at the time of the repeal of the charter. It further directed that the receiver should file in the Chancery Court of the State an original creditors' bill, in the name of the State, on behalf of all the creditors, against all the delinquent tax-payers; and it provided that taxes assessed prior to 1875 might be settled in the valid indebtedness of the extinct municipality, to wit, in valid bonds, whether due or not, due coupons, and any other valid debts of such municipality, with accrued interest, whether in the shape of scrip, warrants, judgments, ledger balances, paving certificates, or receipts for money paid by tax-payers to paving contractors. It directed the receiver and back-tax collector to receive such evidences of debt at the following rates, namely: compromise bonds, at their face value; all other indebtedness at fifty cents on the dollar, except judgments, which should be received at fifty-five per cent of their face value.

The act also directed that the receiver should receive in payment of taxes levied after 1874 the indebtedness of the municipality, when there was no lien or equity requiring payment thereof in current money. It also prohibited the collector or receiver from coercing payment of a greater sum than one-fifth of the taxes in arrear annually, so as to distribute the whole through five equal annual instalments, commencing from his appointment and qualification,-and it remitted all costs of condemnation, penalties, and charges,-provided, however, that nothing therein contained was intended to interfere with any vested rights entitling the party having such right to a speedy collection.

Under the provisions of this act, Minor Meriwether, the principal appellant, was appointed receiver and back-tax collector by the governor of the State. He accepted the appointment, and proceeded to demand the payment to him of the taxes in arrears, interfering with the receiver previously appointed by the Circuit Court, and impeding that receiver in the discharge of his duties. The complainants then filed a supplemental bill, making Meriwether a party defendant, together with some defaulting tax-payers, and praying, among other things, for an injunction against such interference.

To the consolidated bill thus amended and supplemented a general demurrer was filed, which was not sustained by the Circuit Court, and, the defendants electing to stand upon it, a final decree was entered in favor of the complainants. From that decree this appeal has been taken.

Whatever may be said of the equities of the complainants and of their power to enforce those rights in a court of equity, I agree that the decree as entered was too broad. It declared and adjudged that all the assets and property of every description theretofore belonging to the city of Memphis, or so much thereof as may be necessary for the purpose, including taxes theretofore assessed and remaining unpaid and due the city, should be applied to the payment of the debts due to the complainants and other creditors who had made, or might thereafter make, themselves parties to the suit. This included not only the private property of the city, but also that which it had held for public uses; namely, for governmental purposes and as a trustee for the State, such as the public buildings, streets, squares, parks, school-houses, promenades, fire-engines, hose and hose-carriages, engine-houses, engineer instruments, and generally everything held by the city for merely municipal purposes. To this extent, I think, the decree cannot be sustained.

Such property cannot be subjected to the payment of the debts of the corporation. Its public character forbids such an appropriation. It could not be subjected to taxation at the instance of the municipality. It was never held for the payment of debts. Instead thereof, it was held by the city merely as a trustee for the public. It would not be contended that it could have been taken in execution at law, and for the same reason it cannot be reached in equity to satisfy creditors.

I think, also, that part of the decree which adjudges that all the property within the limits of the territory of the city of Memphis is liable and may be subjected to the payment of all the debts owing by the city, and that such liability shall be enforced hereafter, from time to time, in such manner as the Circuit Court might order and direct, is erroneous. Notwithstanding what has been held in some of the New England States, I think the doctrine is generally accepted, that the private property of individuals within the territorial limits of a municipal corporation cannot be reached by its creditors directly, any more than the private property of stockholders in other corporations can be thus reached. It may, it is true, be subjected to taxation for the payment of the corporate debts, but the levy of taxes must be made by the corporation itself, or by the State. It is not a judicial act, and courts of equity, at least the circuit courts of the United States, cannot by their own officers levy a tax. Rees v. City of Watertown, 19 Wall. 107.

They certainly have no power to compel the levy of a tax by a corporation which is without officers and which has ceased to exist.

But while, in these particulars and for these reasons, the decree entered by the Circuit Court cannot be sustained in its full extent, I am of opinion that the complainants are entitled to some of the relief granted them by the decree. If they are not, then a new way has been discovered to pay old debts. It cannot be that a corporation, whether municipal or not, can be dissolved, and that by its dissolution its property can be withdrawn from the reach of its just creditors by any process of law or equity. No doubt there are technical difficulties in the way of maintaining proceedings at law against a corporation after its charter has been repealed, but a court of equity is competent to enforce justice to some extent, even where the processes of law fail.

A case, I think, was made by the bill for the appointment of a receiver to take into the possession of the court those taxes which had been levied by judicial direction for the payment of judgments recovered against the city,-taxes which had been only partially collected. Those taxes were in a most legitimate sense charged with a trust and a trust for the complainants. The fund to be raised by the levies was set apart for a special purpose. It could be used lawfully for no other. The ordinances which directed the levies specified the amounts to be raised, and the judgment creditors for whose use the levies were made. Those creditors were, therefore, cestuis que trust in the fullest sense of the term, the legal interest alone being in the city. The case shows that this trust had been neglected and abused by the trustee. The taxes which it was the duty of the city as trustee to collect had been suffered to remain uncollected in great measure, and for an unreasonable time, and even the portions which were collected had not been paid over, as the writs of mandamus required. This breach of duty by the trustee had continued from 1875 to 1879. Had the trustee been a natural person, or a private corporation, no one would doubt the power of a court of equity to interfere and take the trust out of the hands of the faithless trustee, either by removing him and appointing another trustee, or by administering the trust by its own officers. It can make no difference that the city of Memphis was a municipal corporation. Its character as such does not affect the nature of its obligations to its creditors, or its cestuis que trust, or impair the remedies they would have if the city was a common debtor or trustee. While as a municipal corporation the city had public duties to perform, yet in contracting debts authorized by the law of its organization, or in performing a private trust, it is regarded by the law as standing on the same footing as a private individual, with the same rights and duties, and with the same liabilities, as attend such persons. Over its public duties, it may be admitted, the legislature has plenary authority. Over its private obligations it has not. Bailey v. The Mayor, & c. of the City of New York, 3 Hill (N. Y.), 531; Small v. The Inhabitants of Danville, 51 Me. 359; Oliver v. Worcester, 102 Mass. 489; Dillon, Mun. Corp., sect. 39, and cases cited in the notes.

Moreover, if, as contended by the appellants, the city of Memphis ceased to have any legal existence on the thirty-first day of January, 1879, when the legislative act repealing the charter was approved, the case then became one of a trust without a trustee, pre-eminently fit for equitable interference. A court of equity will not permit a private trust to fail for want of a trustee. And this rule is applicable to cases in which a municipal corporation has been nominated the trustee. Girard v. Philadelphia, 7 Wall. 1; Philadelphia v. Fox, 64 Pa. St. 169; Montpelier v. East Montpelier, 29 Vt. 12. In such cases, as in cases where a natural person or a private corporation is the trustee, and the person has died or the corporation has been dissolved, the court will appoint a new trustee, or execute the trust by its own officers or agents. In Potter on Corporations, sect. 699, it is said: 'Where in any way the legal existence of municipal trustees is destroyed by legislative act, a court of equity will assume the execution of the trust, and, if necessary, will appoint new trustees to take charge of the property, and carry into effect the trust.' In High on Receivers, 304, 305, it is said: 'When creditors of a corporation have a charge upon a particular fund, in the nature of a trust fund, the mismanagement or waste of such fund by those intrusted with its control will warrant the appointment of a receiver.'

So in Batesville Institute v. Kauffman (18 Wall. 151), this court, when speaking of the power of a court to appoint a new trustee in place of one deceased, said: 'It is, however, within the power of a court of equity to decree and enforce the execution of the trust through its own officers and agents, without the intervention of a new trustee,' citing Story's Equity, 976-1060.

Without further citations, which might easily be made, enough has been said to show that in the present case the Circuit Court was authorized to seize by the hands of its own receiver, for administration, those taxes which had been levied specially for the payment of judgments recovered, in regard to which the city had occupied the relation of a trustee, at least practically.

Much of what I have said is equally applicable to the taxes which the city during its corporate existence had levied for the payment of interest on its debt, or for other purposes, and had not collected, and generally to all the assets of the city of every character, except such as I have heretofore mentioned, held for strictly public uses, such as public buildings, parks, fire-apparatus, &c. These general assets, though not held specially in trust for any particular creditors, were held by the corporation, in a very just sense, for the benefit of its creditors. The corporation having ceased to exist, it was perfectly within the power of the Circuit Court, sitting as a court of equity, to seize all its assets to which its creditors have an equitable or legal claim, and hold them for administration. Such assets cannot be appropriated to any other use until the creditors are satisfied. Even legislative action cannot divert them to other uses. These principles have been fully recognized, and particularly in the code of Tennessee. Referring to dissolved corporations, that code enacts (sect. 3426): 'The court shall appoint a receiver, with full power to take possession of all the debts and property, and sell and dispose of, collect and distribute, the same among the creditors and other persons interested, under the orders of the court.' This statute is only an affirmance of equitable remedies before acknowledged and found in textbooks. Thus, in Potter on Corporations (sects. 714, 715), the rule is thus stated: 'Whatever technical difficulties exist in maintaining an action at law against a corporation after its charter has been repealed, in the apprehension of a court of equity there is no difficulty in a creditor's following the property of the corporation into the hands of one not a bona fide creditor or purchaser, asserting his lien thereon, and obtaining satisfaction of his debt.' In Broughton v. Pensacola (93 U.S. 266), the language of the court was: 'The ancient doctrine that, upon the repeal of a private corporation, its debts were extinguished, and its real property reverted to its grantors, and its personal property vested in the State, has been so far modified by modern adjudications that a court of equity will now lay hold of the property of a dissolved corporation and administer it for the benefit of its creditors and stockholders. The obligation of contracts, made whilst the corporation was in existence, survives its dissolution; and the contracts may be enforced by a court of equity, so far as to subject, for their satisfaction, any property possessed by the corporation at the time. In the view of equity, its property constitutes a trust fund pledged to the payment of the debts of creditors and stockholders; and if a municipal corporation, upon the surrender or extinction in other ways of its charter, is possessed of any property, a court of equity will equally take possession of it for the benefit of the creditors of the corporation.'

So in Curran v. Arkansas (15 How. 307), it was said, 'The assets of a corporation are assets for the payment of its debts, and are trust funds for that purpose.' See also Maenhout v. New Orleans, 2 Woods, 108-114.

In Dillon on Municipal Corporations, sect. 37, the rule is stated thus: 'Where the legal existence of a municipal trustee is destroyed by legislative act, a court of chancery will assume the execution of the trust, . . . take charge of the property, and carry into effect the trust.'

In Beckwith v. Racine (7 Biss. 142) the court said: 'Where a contract cannot be enforced at law against a municipal corporation owing to a repeal of its charter, and there are any funds, a court of equity will administer them for the benefit of creditors.'

It is hardly necessary to say that the private property of a municipal corporation is so decidedly stamped with a trust in favor of its creditors, that it is incapable of being diverted to other uses by the legislation of the State. This law has again and again been declared. Grogan v. San Francisco, 18 Cal. 590, by Field, J.; Board of Park Commissioners v. Common Council of Detroit, 28 Mich. 228; City of Dubuque v. Ill. Cent. Railroad Co., 67, 68.

The citations I have made (many others might be added) are sufficient to maintain the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court in this case, and its power to lay hold, by its receiver, of all the property and assets belonging to the city of Memphis, when its charter was repealed, including all taxes levied and collected but undisposed of, and all taxes uncollected, all property purchased by the city in sales for taxes, and all assets of every description, except the property above mentioned held for strictly public uses, and also to administer such assets for the benefit of the creditors.

I do not contend that a court of equity can itself levy a tax. I agree it cannot, and so this court has decided. Rees v. City of Watertown, 19 Wall. 107. The argument which has been submitted to prove that the Circuit Court has no such power is quite unnecessary. It is inapplicable to the case we have in hand. The complainants' bill asked for no assessment or levy of a tax, and the Circuit Court decreed none. The levy of a tax is a very distinct thing from the collection of a tax already levied. The levy is generally a legislative or a quasijudicial act. The collection of a tax after it has been levied is a ministerial act, which a court has power to enforce.

I have said, and I earnestly maintain, that the taxes which the city of Memphis had levied before the repeal of its charter, some of which were collected, but remained on deposit or undisposed of, and some of which are not collected, are assets of the corporation, which its creditors have an equitable right to have seized and appropriated to the payment of the corporate debts. By the lawful assessment and levy of a tax the taxpayer becomes a debtor to the municipality, and the debt may be recovered, like other debts, by a suit at law; or, when it is a lien, by a bill of equity. Such certainly is the law of Tennessee. Mayor & Aldermen of Jonesboro v. McKee, 2 Yerg. (Tenn.) 167; Rutledge v. Fogg, 3 Coldw. (Tenn.) 554; Marr v. The Bank of West Tennessee, 4 id. 487. The imposition of a tax, creates a legal obligation to pay. In Savings Bank v. United States (19 Wall. 227), this court ruled that, independently of an act of Congress authorizing them, suits at law may be maintained by the United States to recover taxes assessed and levied. The statutes of Tennessee leave the matter in no doubt, so far as it relates to the rule in that State. And in the Civil Code, sects. 554, 555, it is enacted that assessed taxes shall be and remain liens upon all taxable property of the person against whom they are assessed. If they are liens, they are enforceable in equity.

It is passing strange if those claims, which, by the law of the State, are debts due to the city and collectible as such by the ordinary processes of law, are not assets of the corporation for the payment of its debts. And if they can be collected in the State courts, I am unable to see why the Circuit Court of the United States, sitting in Tennessee, and having jurisdiction, may not also collect them, or seize them as assets of an insolvent and dissolved corporation. I cannot perceive why they are not as truly assets of the city as are the assessments made by an insolvent mutual insurance company its assets. Nobody would deny that such assessments could be seized by a court of equity, through the agency of its receiver, and administered for the benefit of the creditors of the company. No difficulty would be found in the way of collecting them.

Thus far I have considered the merits of the case as unaffected by the legislation of the State, heretofore spoken of, except so far as that legislation repealed the charter of the city. That legislation was certainly very extraordinary, and quite unprecedented in the history of the country since the Federal Constitution was adopted. Whatever may have been its purpose, and however carefully that purpose may have been disguised, if it can be sustained, its effect is to obstruct, if not totally destroy, all the power of the creditors of the city to enforce payment of the debts due them. They are remanded to the mere grace and favor of the legislature. If ever legislation impaired the obligation of contracts, this did. If it had been simply the repeal of the municipal charter, no one could have called it in question. Undoubtedly the legislature of a State may amend or dissolve the organization of a municipal corporation, so far as its governmental powers are concerned. But no legislature can so dissolve a corporation, municipal or private, as to destroy or impair the obligation of any contracts the corporation may have made. Dillon, Mun. Corp., sect. 114; Von Hoffman v. City of Quincy, 4 Wall. 535. Creditors of municipal corporations are as completely within the protection of the Constitution as any other creditors. What is meant by 'impairing the obligation of a contract' is well defined. Embarrassments thrown by a statute in the way of enforcing payment of a debt, or a statutory substitution for the obligation and liability of the debtor, of the will of some other person, though that person be a State, have not heretofore been recognized as consistent with the Constitution. The protection afforded by its provisions and its prohibition of certain State legislation relate, not to the mode and form of State statutes, but to their operation or effect.

In the view I take of the case, however, it is unnecessary to decide how far the legislation of the State is constitutional, or how far it is in conflict, if at all, with the paramount law which controls alike State and natural persons. Certainly the appointment by the governor of Meriwether as a receiver and back-tax collector can have no effect upon the prior appointment of Latham by the Circuit Court. It cannot confer upon Meriwether any right to interfere with the peformance of the duties which the court had imposed upon its receiver. The jurisdiction of the Circuit Court had fully attached, and, by the action of its receiver, the assets of the city, the tax-bills and books, had come into the possession of the court before Meriwether's appointment. That jurisdiction and possession cannot be divested by any State action. The injunction decreed against Meriwether was, therefore, I think, properly adjudged.

I have thus stated, as briefly as possible, my reasons for dissenting from the action of the majority of the court, reversing the decree of the court below and ordering a dismissal of the complainants' bill.

I think the decree should be modified by striking out so much of it as subjects to the payment of the debts of the city the property held exclusively for public uses, and so much as subjects to such payment the private property of all persons within the city's territorial limits.

Thus modified, I think the decree should be affirmed.

Notes