Court Opinion

ID: 8754106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 11:38:55.824503+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:01:08.377520
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Circuit Judge.
The material facts set forth in the very voluminous bill of complaint in this cause, and the prayers for relief, are concisely and adequately summarized in the opinion of the court below, and any recapitulation is unnecessary. The propositions *101of law which control the case are so plain as to require no amplification or citation of authority.
An analysis of the bill shows that the complainant is a creditor of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad Company, by reason of the guaranty by that company of the payment of 20 negotiable bonds made by the Colorado Midland Railroad Company, the guaranty being indorsed upon the bonds; that these bonds are in the possession of the Central Trust Company, having been placed there by the complainant for certain specific uses, and the trust company wrongfully retains them and refuses to return them to complainant; and that the Colorado Midland Railroad Company and the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fé Railroad Company have denuded themselves of all their property, and the same has been acquired by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Company by proceedings which, as against the complainant, were a nullity.
After recovering a judgment against the railroad company, and upon the return of his execution unsatisfied, the complainant will be in a position to pursue the property in the hands of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Company, which was formerly the property of the railroad company; but it has no equitable cause of action against the railway company until these remedies have been exhausted. His cause of action is purely a legal one as against the defendants the trust company and the railroad company, and he has as yet no equitable cause of action against the defendant the railway .company. His remedy against the trust company is by an action at law in trover or replevin, and his remedy against the railroad company is by an action at law upon the guaranty. No action can be maintained against the trust company and the railroad company jointly, because the latter has taken no part in the conversion of the complainant’s bonds, and the former is not a party to the guaranty. The fact that it may be difficult to prove the value of his bonds or of the guaranty in an action against the trust company does not supply a reason for resorting to a court of equity to recover of the trust company. It is always difficult to establish the value of the obligations of an extensive corporation which has become practically defunct, because they are not dealt in on the exchanges; but it can be established, and not infrequently is, in actions where the question is in controversy.
The court below properly held that the demurrers of the trust company and the railway company upon the grounds of want of equity and multifariousness were well taken, and the decree is
Affirmed, with costs.