The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-03-18
~iaih Di.trice Court for the Parish Of o. leans
Eon. Arthur Saucer. Judge.

we publish below the important decision
of Judge Saucer filed yesterday in the Jung
& Simpson case. For the reasons therein as
signed, Judgment was rendered in favor of The
plaintiffs in all the above entitled suits. The
opinion is as follows:
| Plaintiff action is based on seven several
bills of exchange drawn by defendants. at
New Orleans on the 18th day of September,
| 1873 to the order of and Endorsed by Messrs
Cavaroc Son. payable ninety days after
sight in Paris. upon and accepted by Seigpod-
ret Freres. six of said bills being TOR twenty
five thousand francs and one for twenty thou
sand francs.
The bills were duly protested at maturity.
and notice of protest was given to defendants
on the 19th of January. 1874.
| The defense is:
! I. Tina. the drawing Of the bills sued on
! was unauthorized by the charter. and beyond
the powers of the corporation.
| 3 That the drawing and selling of said
| bills by the defendants constituted an en-
change business which is prohibited by posse
tive law.
The evidence, as to the origin OF the bills
sued on, is that in the summer of 1870. the
| then president of the New Orleans Mutual
Insurance Association being in Europe,
represented to Messrs. Seignouret Freres that
the association might need money, and ar
ranged with them the terms and conditions
upon which they agreed to accept its bills.
Nothing was done under this agreement
until the fall of 1871, when the first bill was
drawn by the defendants under it. Then i'm
mediately followed numerous bills, drawn at
sixty, and sometimes at ninety days after
sight, and these operations continued, almost
uninterruptedly, until September or October,
Al IL.
high as Ala, all involving Urge sums of
money. Among these are the bills sued on.
AS to the first ground of Defense the plea
of ultra rires, the doctrine of this plea has
not been carried by the courts OF this country
beyond cases in which the act or contract
alleged to be unauthorized was prohibited in
the charter of the incorporation, or act of in
corporation land this with limitations) or wa,
in itself unlawful or immoral.
The doctrine i, rather that contracts OF cor
porations, made in excess of their lawful
powers, but free from any other vice, are net
Illegal in the sense of the maxim, Ct trpi
,otsa, and will be enforced whenever the cor
poration has received the benefit of such con-
tracts, and their avoidance would do great
wrong to innocent third parties claiming
under them.
AS to the second ground. that the drawing
of, or becoming parties to, bills by the de-
PENDANTS constituted business which the
Law prevented them from carrying on
Revised Statutes section GS3o
1t is true that article II, c. e. provides.
that whatever is done in contravention of a
prohlhitory law is void, although the nullity
be not formally directeds but this rule, broad
it apparently isp has been Sestricted in its
application to paratively few cases.
1t has been held that it had its origin in the
T,,r prla hot ,lc,,oa
which grew up under that Code sanctioned
also another rule which has been Incorporated
in the jurisprudence of all countries, tn.
maxim Ntlta Jint proHiJstae, gtar $; f!c..
ttteras otterent .tfraitaten. Interpreted to.
gether, the two rules perform their appropri.
ate Office: the former being intended for the
maintenance of public order. aid the latter
for the enforcement Of rights acquired in good
ia til, where no question of public policy IS
directly involved = 40 QUE Wall 90. 20
4. fGSo
The proYbitory statute invoked by the lie.
PENDANTS provides thai no rporatlon shall
engage in mercantile or in brokerage, stock
jobbing, exchange or banking business OF any
kind. Acts Of 1S55o 1872 Revised Statutes,
section G53. L denounces no penalty, and
directs no nulllty. It IS provision of law.
directed to all corporations organized under
the generalincorporation law of the S ate and
is not cont ,ined IL the charter of corporations
thus organized. 1t has been held that laws
imposing restraints upon corporations, not
obtained in their charter, will not be notice
to those dealing with them. when the contract
is made or the transaction takes place with
out the limits OF the State or country under
whose laws they exist. s. Barbour, n. Y. 233.
Bat, with due Difference to the learned
counsel for the defendants, | have not been
able to find, after an ex ended tx amin .tlon OF
The facts and the Law of this case, that the
defend ants are within the defense set up.
The facts do not warrant the conclusion that
they followed, in drawing or becoming par