Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/146/153
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 12:04:41+00:00

Document:
ROBY v. COLEHOUR et al.
Statement by Mr. Justice HARLAN: John M. Palmer, for plaintiff in error.
H. S. Monroe and W. C. Goudy, for defendants in error.
By deed of date July 18, 1871, Henry F. Clarke and others conveyed to William H. Colehour certain lands in Cook county, Ill., embracing those here in dispute, subject to a mortgage for $4,000, held by Mary P. M. Palmer. The sum of $10,000 was paid in cash, and the grantee executed his notes, aggregating $86,000, for the balance of the purchase money; and, for the purpose of securing them, executed a deed conveying the lands to V. C. Turner in trust. William Hansbrought, Charles W. Colehour, Wesley Morrill, and Francis M. Corby were interested in the profits to be derived from their sale. Hansbrough sold and assigned his interest to Charles W. Colehour and Edward Roby, and Charles W. Colehour acquired the interests of Corby and Morrill. Roby executed to Hansbrough his notes for $4,400, and subsequently paid them. The Colehours and Roby made an arrangement for subdividing and selling the property. That arrangement was evidenced by a written declaration of trust made by William H. Colehour in October, 1873, which Charles W. Colehour and Edward Roby accepted, and by which it was provided, among other things, that, after the payment of all sums due on the notes secured on the land, and all moneys advanced for its development, Roby should be entitled to one fourth, Charles W. Colehour to one half, and William H. Colehour to one fourth, of the net profits. Subsequently, a part of the land was subdivided and improved by grading streets, making ditches, etc., and a part sold, freed from the lien created by the deed of trust given to Turner.
On the 1st day of May, 1897, William H. Colehour executed to Charles W. Colehour a deed covering the lands in dispute subject to the terms of certain declarations of trust which the grantor had previously made.
On the 30th of January, 1890, Charles W. Colehour brought a suit in equity (the principal one of the above cases) in the circuit court of Cook county, Ill., against Edward Roby and William H. Colehour. For the purposes of the present hearing it is only necessary to state that the theory of the bill was that Roby, by fraud, and in violation of his obligations as attorney for the plaintiff, and the defendant William H. Colehour, had acquired, at execution sales and otherwise, the legal title to the lands in dispute, embraced by the deed of trust of October, 1873; and that, if not barred in equity by his acts and conduct from claiming any interest in them, he was entitled to only one quarter of the net profits after all debts and liens against them were paid. The relief prayed was a decree declaring a certain deed from W. H. Colehour to Roby to be void, and that it be set aside as a could upon the title of the plaintiff and W. H. Colehour; that a receiver be appointed, to whom should be conveyed the titles claimed by the respective parties; that the lands be sold, and the proceeds held subject to the final decree in the cause; that the plaintiff and W. H. Colehour be decreed to be the owners of the equity of redemption; and that such other relief be given as was agreeable to equity.
The defendants answered the bill, and W. H. Colehour filed a cross bill for a decree establishing the interests of the parties to be one fourth in Roby and W. H. Colehour, each, and one half in Charles W. Colehour.
At the same time the court dismissed for want of equity certain suitsthree of the suits mentioned in the title to this opinionwhich Roby had instituted for the recovery of part of the lands under the titles which, as stated, he had acquired by purchase at execution sales and otherwise. These suits had been previously consolidated with the suit just above mentioned, brought by Charles W. Colehour.
This question is a close one. But, although it does not appear from the opinion of the court of original jurisdiction or the opinion of the supreme court of Illinois that either court formally passed upon any question of a federal nature, the necessary effect of the decree was to determine, adversely to Roby, the rights and immunities claimed by him in the pleadings and proof under the proceedings in bankruptcy, to which reference has been made. We must not be understood as holding that the certificate from the chief justice of the latter court is, in itself, and without reference to the record, sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon this court to re-examine the judgment below. Our jurisdiction being invoked upon the ground that a right or immunity, specially set up and claimed under the constitution or authority of the United States, has been denied by the judgment sought to be reviewed, it must appear from the record of the case either that the right, so set up and claimed, was expressly denied, or that such was the necessary effect in law of the judgment. Parmelee v. Lawrence, 11 Wall. 36, 38; Brown v. Atwell, 92 U. S. 327, 329; Gross v. Mortgage Co., 108 U. S. 477, 485, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 940; Felix v. Scharnweber, 125 U. S. 54, 59, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 759. The present case may be held to come within this rule. In view of the certificate by the chief justice of the state court, the office of which, as said in Parmelee v. Lawrence, was, as respects the federal question, 'to make more certain and specific what is too general and indefinite in the record,' we are not disposed to construe the pleadings so strictly as to hold that they did not sufficiently set up and claim the federal rights which that certificate states were claimed by Roby, but were withheld, and were intended to be withheld, from him by the court.
While the motion to dismiss must, therefore, be overruled, yet, as there was color for it, we must inquire whether the questions on which jurisdiction depends are such as, in the language of our rule, (6,) not to need further argument. We are of opinion that they are of that class. When Charles W. Colehour was adjudged a bankrupt he does not appear to have held any interest in the lands now in controversy. The answer of Roby distinctly states that he, Charles W. Colehour, in 1876, for a sufficient and valuable consideration, conveyed all his interest to W. H. Colehour, and had no interest in said lands at the date of his petition in bankruptcy, filed in 1878. The decree is evidently based, so far as Charles W. Colehour is concerned, upon the deed to him by William H. Colehour, executed in 1879, although the respective interests of the parties were established with reference to the declaration of trust made in October, 1873. There is consequently no ground upon which to rest the contention that Charles W. Colehour had any interest or right in the lands that passed to his assignee in bankruptcy.
Equally without force is the contention that the adjudication of Roby to be a bankrupt, followed by his conveyance to his assignee in bankruptcy, and his purchase from such assignee, had any effect upon the rights of William H. Colehour or Charles W. Colehour. The respective interests of Roby and the Colehours in the lands at the date of Roby's bankruptcy could have been determined in a suit or proceeding to which they and Roby's assignee in bankruptcy were parties, so that the purchaser at the assignee's sale would have acquired a title discharged from any claim upon them by either of the Colehours. But it does not appear that any such was brought, or that the conflicting interests of the parties were determined as between them, or either of them, and Roby's assignee in bankruptcy. Roby's claim is that his purchase of the lands from his assignee in bankruptcy, the legal title to which was in him, of record, discharged him from all obligation to recognize any claim, upon the part of either of the Colehours, arising out of the relations existing between them and him prior to his bankruptcy. If, at the time of filing his petition in bankruptcy, he was bound by his relations to the Colehours, although holding the legal title, to account to them for their portions of the lands, as defined in any previous declaration of trust to which he was a party, or to which he assented, or by which he was bound, he was not discharged from that obligation by merely purchasing the lands from his assignee in bankruptcy. It does not appear that any issue was framed and determined in the bankruptcy court as between him or his assignee and the Colehours. The conveyance to his assignee passed to the latter only such interest as he in fact had, and when he bought from the assignee he purchased only such as he could rightfully have conveyed originally to his assignee. If, before he went into bankruptcy, the Colehours had any interest in the lands which they could assert as between themselves and him, he could not, by simply purchasing it from his assignee, acquire an absolute title, freed from their claim. We are of opinion that the proceedings in bankruptcy against Roby, and the purchase from his assignee, did not defeat the claims now asserted by the Colehours in these lands, and which were recognized by the decree below.
Whether such relations in fact existed between the Colehours and Roby as prevented him, consistently with those relations, from purchasing the lands for himself,in other words, whether he was the attorney of the Colehours when he acquired the legal title,or whether, upon principles of equity, Roby should be deemed to have acquired the title for them and himself, subject to the declaration of trust referred to in the pleadings and decree, are not questions of a federal nature. The decree below, in respect to those matters, is not subject to re-examination by this court. The federal questions having been decided correctly, and those questions being such as not to need any further argument beyond that presented in the briefs of counsel, the decree in each of the cases must be affirmed.
POWELL et al. v. SUPERVISORS OF BRUNSWICK COUNTY et al.
NEWPORT LIGHT CO. v. CITY OF NEWPORT et al.
HOME FOR INCURABLES, v. CITY OF NEW YORK.

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