Court Opinion

ID: 9841776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:06:05.23529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:46.242049
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Lamar
dissenting.
1 concur in the judgment dismissing the appeal-in No. 71 for want of jurisdiction, but I dissent from the judgment and opinion of the court, just, announced, affirming the decree of the court below in No. 60. As I see the case, it is a bill in which the complainant, (The St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway Company,) asks the aid of a court of equity to relieve it from the execution of a judgment of a court of law, affirmed by this court, upon the ground that it would .be against conscience to execute that judgment in obedience to-the mandate of this court. I do not say that a court of equity cannot interfere in such a case. But, as has been remarked by Lord Redesdale, “ bills of this description have not of late years been much countenanced.” 2 Story Eq. Jur. § 888. In general, such jurisdiction is exercised only in a case where the equity of the applicant is free from doubt — such-equity, for instance, as that the judgment was obtained by fraud, accident or mistake; or. that the.applicant had a good defence to the action at law of which he could not avail himself in a court of law, or was prevented from doing so by the act of the adverse party, or by some accident, .unmixed with negligence or fault *613in himself ; or that the right, upon which the relief- he asks in equity, arose after the judgment at' law was obtained, and independently of it, and which would not have constituted a defence in the suit at law. Marshall v. Holmes, ante, 589, and cases there cited. I do got think that the state of facts which appears in this record presents such a case. It is more like the case of Ballance v. Forsyth, 24 How. 183. In that case, Ballance hrought an action of ejectment against Forsyth and obtained a verdict and judgment for the recovery of the land in dispute. The judgment was affirmed by this court. 13 How. 18. After-the mandate went down from this court, Ballance filed a bill in equity, setting forth the same titles that were involved in the suit at law, and praying relief on certain special grounds. Mr. Justice Campbell, who delivered the opinion of the court, said: “ This is a bill filed by the plaintiff to enjoin the execution of a judgment in. the Circuit Court,' upon which a writ of error had been taken to this court and affirmed. ' The cause in this court was between the same parties, and the decision of the court is reported in 13 How. . 18. The plaintiff sets forth the claims of the respective parties, and insists that his is the superior right, and that he is entitled to have the property,^. But it is not allowable' to him to appeal from the judgment of the Circuit Court and Supreme Court to a court of chancery upon the relative merit of the legal titles involved in the controversy they had adjudicated.”
These few sentences aptly characterize the case under consideration. The two cases, in their essential features, are very similar. In the one cited, the relative merits of the legal titles to the property in dispute were involved. In this, the relative claims of right to the possession of the property in dispute are involved.. There is one difference between them. The applicant for relief in this case-comes into court an .adjudged trespasser and wrong-doer, asking for relief-from the legal effects of his own wilfully illegal act. In speaking of the complainant as a trespasser and wrong-doer, I' am sustained , by the statement in the bill itself, to the effect that, whilst the action of forcible entry and detainer was pending, the complainant bought the property of which the appellant was dispossessed, *614took possession thereof and became a maintainer of the defendant in the suit, and was -itself made a party to said suit.
The special equities upon which Forsyth, in the case just referred to, asked for relief, are not enumerated in the report of the case. But in this case we find none of the equities which courts qf chancery have recognized as justifying an interposition by injunction to restrain the execution of a judgment. It is not pretended that the judgment in the action at law was obtained by fraud, mistake or accident. It is not denied that that judgment was rendered after a fair, legal, protracted and warmly contested trial. There is not an averment that the judgment is even erroneous in law or that it worked an unjust hardship on the railroad company.
The bill alleges no fact or circumstance which has occurred since the rendition of the judgment by the District Court and this court, which would make its execution against conscience. The only equity it assumes to set up is the irreparable damage and injury which it alleges would be caused to the railroad company by reason of its being a common carrier and a United States mail carrier over the railroad in question, whose duties it would be unable to perform if not allowed to retain possession and use of said railroad. The answer to this claim is, that the irreparable mischief was as imminent when the action at law was pending as it is now. Nor was there any fact which being a good defence, either legal or equitable,, pending the action, of which it was prevented from availing itself by any agency of the opposite party or by any accident unmixed with its own negligence ór fault.
I do not think that the vlf’tten agreement of October 6,1881, between the appellant, Johnson, and Bailey, (the president of the railroad company,) merits consideration as. a ground of equitable relief, in view of the peculiar circumstances which attended its execution. That writing was entered into whilst the possessory suit was pc ding and before the complainant was made a party thereto. If it is a valid ground for equitable intervention now, it was then; and the complainant could have filed his bill on the equity side of the court, praying that the action be suspended until the equities of the case could be adjusted, and thus have prevented the judgment from being *615obtained. Instead of pursuing such a course the complainant waited about seven months after the judgment was affirmed by this court, when, assuming that the written agreement, so called, was the sole measure of the rights of Johnson under the judgment, it tendered him the sum named in that agreement, and upon his refusal to accept the same as a full satisfaction, instituted this suit, asking the court to aid it in retaining its illegal and ill-gotten possession of the property in the controversy. The same remark applies to the tender by the company to Johnson of $25,000. It was not such a fact, arising after the judgment, and independent of it, as constitutes in itself alone a right to invoke the aid of a court of equity; but it was an act closely connected with that judgment, not independent of it, resorted to as a means of avoiding the execution thereof by offering the $25,000 as a substitute for its satisfaction ; in no aspect of it does that tender, relied on as the foundation of this suit, create the clear and unquestionable equity which alone can justify a court of chancery in suspending the execution of a judgment, for the express purpose of giving its sanction and protection to a possession acquired by an unlawful forcible entry and detainer. The undisputed facts of the case are, that the appellee purchased from the original transgressor, who had ousted Johnson of his rightful possession of the railroad property, took possession and continued in the wrongful occupancy and use of it; contested the action of forcible entry and detainer brought by Johnson until judgment was rendered in his favor, awarding to him restitution of the possession of the property, which, on a writ of error from this court, .was affirmed; and now when it asks for a decree enjoining Johnson from taking the possession thus adjudged to him, equity demands that before the preventive remedy of injunction can be invoked, there must first be an actual restoration of the injured party to his original rights.
I think the decree- of the court below should be - reversed, ■and the cause remanded with direction to dismiss the bill and dissolve the injunction.
Mr. Justice Gray was not present at the argument and took no part in the decision.