Court Opinion

ID: 8865834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 18:05:14.712373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:05:59.553068
License: Public Domain

SANBORN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). I regret that I am unable to concur in a reversal of the order that the lien of the appellee Jackson should he enforced in this case. I cannot do so, because I think ¡hat the lien exists, and because I believe that the question of lien or no lien was finally adjudicated between these parties by the decree of April 18, 1893, from which no appeal was taken, and that this adjudication is not reviewable upon this appeal from an order made in 1897 for the mere purpose of executing that decree. It is true that the original decree of foreclosure in the main suit, which whs rendered on July 15, 1890, provides that the purchaser or purchasers at the foreclosure sale shall hold the mortgaged property “free and discharged from the claims of all parties to this suit, whether such persons are parties hereto by representa Lion or otherwise”; but that, provision, in my opinion, did not relieve the railroad and its appurtenances of the lien of the appellee Jackson, for two reasons: (1) Because it was made on July 15, 1890, and Jackson was not then a party to the suit, by representation or otherwise, and never became such until he filed his first petition of intervention, on November 31, 1892; and (2) because the decree expressly provided in its seventh paragraph that the property purchased at the foreclosure sale should not be released from the Mens of debts incurred by the receivers in operating the railroad, hut that these debts should constitute paramount liens thereon until the same were paid, and the claim of Jackson was one of these debts. It was not the theory of that decree that the property sold under it: should pass to the purchaser free from the liens of the creditors of the receivers and that those creditors should he paid out of the proceeds of the sale, but the plan and the legal effect of the decree were that the purchaser should take the property subject to the liens of these creditors, which should remain securely fastened upon it until they were paid. It was to effectuate this purpose that the decree expressly provided in the eighth paragraph that the court reserved the power and jurisdiction against the purchaser at the sale and his assigns to hear all claims thereafter preferred which were contracted by tbe receivers, to determine their validity, to decide upon the ex*570istence and rank of their liens, and to retake and sell again the property to be sold under the decree for the purpose of satisfying these claims.
But, to my mind, the conclusive answer to the proposition that the order below should be reversed because Jackson has no lien upon the railroad is that the question of the existence of his lien upon this property is not open for consideration on this appeal, but was conclusively determined by the final decree upon the intervention of Jackson, which was rendered on April 18, 1893. The decree of foreclosure and sale in the original suit was rendered on July 15, 1890; and the order which required the purchaser to pay $30,000 into the registry of the court, and which, it is claimed, devested Jackson’s lien from the property and imposed it upon the money, was made on January 28, 1890. On December 31, 1892, Jackson appeared in this; case for the first time, and filed an intervening petition, in which he pleaded his judgment against the receivers, and alleged that under the statutes of Arkansas and under the foreclosure decree he had a paramount lien upon the railroad-and its appurtenances in the hands of the purchaser at the foreclosure sale, and prayed that this lien might be foreclosed. On March 17, 1893, the purchaser at the foreclosure sale, the appellee Fitzgerald, answered this petition, denied that Jackson had any lien upon the railroad, and pleaded his deposit of the $30,000 in the registry of the court under the order of January 28, 1890. Thus, the question whether or not Jackson had a lien upon the railroad and its appurtenances in the hands of the purchaser was directly in issue upon that intervention. That issue was tried on the merits, and on April 18, 1893, the United States circuit court for the Eastern district of Arkansas entered its decree, which not only recited that Jackson had a lien upon this railroad property, but expressly adjudicated that question, in these words:
“It is therefore ordered, considered, and- adjudged that the said Daniel C. Jackson, intervener, have and recover of and from the said S. W. Fordyce and A. H. Swanson, as receivers as aforesaid, the said sum of five thousand eight hundred and forty-eight dollars and eighty-three cents ($5,848.83), and interest thereon from this date at the rate of six per centum per annum, that said sum is a lien upon said mortgaged premises so purchased by the said Louis Fitzgerald, purchasing trustee as aforesaid, and that the same should be paid out of the fund deposited by said purchasing trustee in the registry of this court for the payment of such debts; and said sum of $30,000 so paid into the registry of this court for the purposes aforesaid having been duly deposited in the German National Bank of Little Bock, Arkansas, the designated and appointed depository of this court,' the clerk is directed to draw an order, payable to-said intervener or his solicitors of record, on said depository, for the signature of the judge, for said sum so allowed said intervener.”
This was a final and conclusive adjudication made on April 18, 1893, between the parties to this appeal, or their privies, that the claim of the appellee was then a lien upon the premises which they purchased at the foreclosure sale. They might have had a review of that decision by taking an appeal from that decree to this court, by a motion for a rehearing, or by a bill of review; but no such proceedings were ever had, and the decree stands unimpeached and unchallenged.
*571A decree is final which terminates the litigation between the parties on the merits of the case, fixes their rights and liabilities, and leaves nothing to he done but to execute it, although the case be referred to a master to state an account, or to determine questions incidental to its execution. Chase v. Driver, 92 Fed. 780, 785; St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Southern Exp. Co., 108 U. S. 24, 29, 2 Sup. Ct. 6; Bank v. Shedd, 121 U. S. 74, 84, 85, 7 Sup. Ct. 807; Hill v. Railroad Co., 140 U. S. 52, 54, 11 Sup. Ct. 690. The only real question on the merits between tbe parties to this intervention was whether or not Jackson had a lien upon the railroad and its appurtenances in the hands of the purchaser after the foreclosure sale, and the deposit of the $30,000 under the order of January 28, 1890; and when that issue was adjudicated, as it was by the decree of April 18, 1893, their rights and liabilities were fixed, and there was nothing left to he done but to execute the decrees that had been rendered. The decree upon the intervention established the lien, and the foreclosure decree adjudged how it should be enforced if the debt was not paid, namely, by retaking and reselling the railroad property purchased under the foreclosure decree. The decree of April 18, 1893, was not only a judgment that Jackson’s lien upon the railroad existed, but it was also an express adjudication that the order for the deposit and the deposit of the $30,000 had not devested it. This is true (1) because tbe fact that the order and deposit had been made was set forth in the pleadings on which the case was tried and upon which the decree was founded; and because, (2) if this fact had not been pleaded or mentioned, the decree that the lien upon the railroad and appurtenances existed after (lie order and deposit had been made would have been equally conclusive upon tbe parties to that decree, and upon their privies, to the ei'fect that it: had not been devested from the railroad, or transferred to the $30,000, by the order or by the deposit. In an action between tbe same parties and those in privity with them upon the same claim or demand, a judgment upou the merits is conclusive, not only as to every matter offered, but as to every admissible matter that might have been offered, to sustain or defeat the claim or demand. Commissioners v. Platt, 49 U. S. App. 216, 223, 25 C. C. A. 87, 91, 79 Fed. 567, 571; Cromwell v. Sac County, 94 U. S. 351, 352; Dickson v. Wilkinson, 3 How. 57, 61; Dimock v. Copper Co., 117 U. S. 559, 565, 6 Sup. Ct. 855; Last Chance Min. Co. v. Tyler Min. Co., 157 U. S. 683, 691, 15 Sup. Ct. 733. The act of congress limited the time within which this adjudication could be reviewed in this court: to six months from the date of the entry of the decree, and no appeal was ever taken from it. As it was a final decree, it was not re viewable on an appeal from any subsequent orders or decrees entered for the purpose of enforcing the rights and liabilities which were fixed by it. Rev. St. § 692; 26 Stat. c. 517, § 6; 1 Supp. Rev. St. (2d Ed.) p. 903; Chase v. Driver, 92 Fed. 780, 783; Fourniquet v. Perkins, 16 How. 82, 84. Now, the appeal in this suit: is from an order made on November 27, 1897, for the mere purpose of enforcing the lien fixed by the decree of April 18, 1893, and of executing that decree and the original decree of foreclosure, which expressly provided that, if such *572liens were not paid, they might be enforced by a reseizure and another sale of the mdrtgaged property. This appeal was not taken until March 25, 1898, more than four years after the decree which established the lien was rendered, and it does not challenge or mention that adjudication. For these reasons, I am constrained to believe that the question of the existence of Jackson’s lien upon the railroad in the hands of these appellees is not here for our consideration; that it was finally adjudicated by the decree of April 18, 1893; and that this court has no jurisdiction to review or reverse that decree on an appeal from a mere order in execution of it made more than four years after its entry.
I attach no importance to the disposition of the $30,000 paid into the registry of the court, or to the futile attempts of Jackson to secure payment of his claim by means of worthless orders upon a fund that was gone. If, as the majority of the court hold, the question of the existence of his lien upon the railroad property is reviewable upon this appeal, and if the order for the deposit and the deposit of the $30,000 devested that lien from this property and transferred it to the lost fund, then the lien upon the railroad does not exist, and the order below should be reversed. If, on the other hand, the question of lien or no lien', which was determined by the decree of April 18, 1893, is not reviewable here in the absence of an appeal from that decree, or if the order for the deposit and the deposit did not devest that lien, then it exists, and it will continue to exist until it is either paid' in full, or released by Jackson, or discharged by the decree of a court; and the order below was right. It seems to me that that order should be affirmed.