Case Name: The Terre Haute and Alton Railroad Company, Plaintiff in Error, v. Daniel Earp, Defendant in Error
Court: Illinois Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Illinois
Decision Date: 1859-01
Citations: 21 Ill. 291
Docket Number: 
Parties: The Terre Haute and Alton Railroad Company, Plaintiff in Error, v. Daniel Earp, Defendant in Error.
Judges: 
Reporter: Illinois Reports
Volume: 21
Pages: 291–294

Head Matter:
The Terre Haute and Alton Railroad Company, Plaintiff in Error, v. Daniel Earp, Defendant in Error.
ERROR TO SHELBY.
A subscriber to stock in a railroad company cannot avoid payment, because the charter of the road has been so changed, as to authorize the company to which the subscription was made, to purchase stock in other railroad companies, even though the terminus of the road, in which the stock was first subscribed, is thereby changed.
This was a suit in assumpsit, instituted in the Circuit Court of Shelby county, by the Terre Haute and Alton Railroad Company, against Daniel Earp, the defendant in error, to recover the sum of five hundred dollars, subscribed by him for ten shares of the capital stock of said company.
The defendant, in the court below, filed various pleas, upon several of which issue was taken, and others were demurred to ; but the only question presented to the court upon the record in this cause, arises upon the fourth plea of the defendant, which is as follows, viz.: “ And for further plea in this behalf, the defendant says actio non, because, he says, that at the time when he signed the said articles of association, and subscribed for ten shares of the capital stock of the Terre Haute and Alton Railroad Company, he so signed and subscribed for the purpose of constructing, completing and operating a railroad from Terre Haute, in the State of Indiana, to the city of Alton, on the Mississippi river, in the State of Illinois, the same to be run and kept in operation from and to the points aforesaid, as required by the articles of association, signed and subscribed by said defendant and others, and as also required and specified in an act entitled ‘ An Act to incorporate the Terre Haute and Alton Railroad Company,’ approved January 28th, 1851, and other acts amendatory thereof, and for no other purpose; and the said defendant avers that said plaintiff having first constructed their road from Terre Haute to Alton, and having purchased an interest of two-thirds in, and acquired control of the charter of the Belleville and Illinoistown Railroad Company, by and under color thereof, built and constructed a railroad from a point about four miles eastward of Alton, on their original railroad from Terre Haute to Alton, to Illinoistown, at a point on the Mississippi river, at a great distance, to wit: twenty-five miles from Alton, aforesaid, and opposite to the city of St. Louis, in the State of Missouri, which new and deflected road, together with all that part of the original Terre Haute and Alton road, lying eastward of said point of deflection, said plaintiff has constituted into one continuous line of travel and trade, thereby making the real terminus of the road, to which defendant’s money, by this suit, is sought to be applied, to be at said Illinoistown, and not at Alton aforesaid, and that the same was done without the consent of defendant, and this the defendant is ready to verify y wherefore, etc.”
To this plea the plaintiff demurred, and the court below overruled said demurrer, and the plaintiff abiding by said demurrer, judgment was rendered in favor of said defendant upon said demurrer.
The only error assigned in this cause, and presented by the record, is the decision of the court below in overruling the demurrer to said plea.
J. Gillespie, S. W. Moulton, and Levi Davis, for Plaintiff in Error.
Lincoln & Herndon, for Defendant in Error.

Opinion:
Caton, C. J.
The principles by which this case must be determined, have already been settled by repeated decisions of this court, and we do not feel called upon to discuss them again ;at length. By the second section of the act amending the charter of the plaintiff, passed on the 28th of February, 1854, it was authorized to take stock in other roads, and in pursuance of that authority, it purchased a majority of the stock of the ;road from Alton to Illinoistown, and- this is the act set up as .releasing the defendant from his subscription. That it was for the interest of the plaintiff to obtain the control of that road, -and thus secure a continuous route to Illinoistown, may be easily appreciáted, and is to be presumed from the fact that it was ¡authorized by the legislature to do so, and that in pursuance of that authority it purchased the stock and obtained such control. If what we have said in the cases of Alton and Sangamon Railroad Company v. Barrett, 13 Ill. R. 504, Sprague v. Illinois River Railroad Co., 19 Ill. 174, Illinois River Railroad Company v. Zimmer, 20 Ill. 654, and Price v. Rock Island and Alton Railroad Company, post, has not shown satisfactory reasons for the rule of law which we hold on this subject, we despair of doing so now.
In our opinion, the facts set up in the plea constituted no defense to the action, and the demurrer to it should have been overruled.
The judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded.
Judgment reversed.