Court Opinion

ID: 87391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:01:13+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:30.806420
License: Public Domain

65 U.S. 233 (____)
24 How. 233
WILLIAM THOMPSON AND JOHN PICKELL, PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR,
v.
LEWIS ROBERTS, GIDEON R. BURBANK, AND ADDISON ROBERTS.
Supreme Court of United States.

*236 It was argued by Mr. Mayer, upon a brief filed by himself and Mr. Washington Yellott, for the plaintiffs in error, and by Mr. Alexander for the defendants.
*239 Mr. Justice GRIER delivered the opinion of the court.
The defendants in error were plaintiffs below, and brought this suit as endorsers of two notes given by the plaintiffs in error to William H. Smith. These notes were given in part payment of some tracts of coal land sold and conveyed to Thompson and Pickell by Smith, and the defence endeavored to be established on the trial was a want of consideration, in that Smith had falsely represented the lands to contain 300 acres of "big-vein" coal, when in fact they contained but 150 acres. A mortgage had been given to secure these notes; a bill had been filed in chancery to foreclose this mortgage, in which Smith, the assigner, and Roberts and others, the equitable assignees of the mortgage, and endorsees of these notes, were complainants, and Thompson and Pickell, together with their assignees, the Pickell Mining Company, were respondents. They put in a joint and several answer admitting the execution of the notes and mortgage, and alleging as a defence the representations made by Smith, by which Thompson and Pickell were induced to purchase the lands, supposing them to contain 300 acres of the "big-vein" coal, when in fact, as they afterwards discovered, the lands contained but 150 acres of the same. For this reason, and "because they did not receive a valuable consideration for said notes or mortgage, respondents aver that plaintiffs are not entitled to demand payment of them, or any part of them, but the same are to be regarded as absolutely void."
This case was fully heard by the chancellor on the pleadings and evidence, who overruled the defence set up, and decreed a sale of the mortgaged premises. The record of that case was put in evidence on the trial of this case by the defendants *240 below, for the purpose, as they alleged, "of showing that the plaintiffs were not holders for value."
They offered for that purpose a part only of the record. Whereupon the plaintiffs gave in evidence the entire record, and insisted that the decree is conclusive, and estops the defendants from again alleging the same matter as a defence to the suit at law on the notes. The evidence was, however, again presented to the jury, without a waiver of plaintiffs' right to treat the decree as an estoppel.
The court rejected a number of prayers offered by each party, and gave the following instruction to the jury, which is the subject of exception:
"If the jury shall find from the evidence that the promissory notes offered in evidence in this case were duly executed and delivered by the said defendants to William H. Smith, and by him endorsed over to the said plaintiffs for value; and that in the cause on the equity side of this court, in which the said plaintiffs, with the said Smith, were complainants, and the said Thompson and Pickell, with the Pickell Mining Company, were defendants, (the record of which has been offered in evidence,) the same defence was made and set up in said cause to prevent the passage of a decree for the sale of the said lands to pay the said notes as is now made to prevent a recovery in this case, then the decree passed in that case is conclusive upon the point of this defence, and the plaintiffs are entitled to recover in this action."
The plaintiffs in error have not called in question the correctness of the general principle of law assumed by the court below, viz: "that the judgment of a court of law, or a decree of a court of equity, directly upon the same point, and between the same parties, is good as a plea in bar, and conclusive when given in evidence in a subsequent suit."
But it is objected to this instruction, that it submits as a question of fact to the jury what ought to have been decided by the court as matter of law from the face of the record produced. This, if an error, was one favorable to the plaintiffs in error, as it gave them the chance of a verdict on a point which, if decided by the court, must have been decided against *241 them; for the record shows conclusively that the very same defence against these notes was the only point in dispute in the court of equity, to wit, whether plaintiffs in error were "deceived by" the alleged misrepresentations of Smith, fraudulent or otherwise, and whether the notes were therefore "without consideration," and "absolutely void."
The objection that the parties were not the same in both suits cannot be sustained.
Both parties to this litigation were parties in that suit; the subject-matter was the same; the defence now set up was the same which the pleadings and the evidence show to have been adjudicated in the court of chancery.
It is true, Smith, who endorsed the notes to the plaintiffs below, and who was interested in the question, was joined as complainant, and the Pickell Mining Company, who had purchased the mortgaged property, were made respondents, according to the practice in courts of chancery, where all parties having an interest in the question to be tried are made parties, that the decree may be final as to all the matters in litigation. No good reason can be given why the parties in this case, who litigated the same question, should not be concluded by the decree, because others having an interest in the question or subject-matter were admitted by the practice of a court of chancery to assist on both sides.
The question as between the present parties is res judicata, and none the less binding because others are concluded also. A contrary doctrine would sacrifice a wholesome principle of law to a mere technical rule having no foundation in reason; making a distinction where there is no difference.
Such was the ruling of the court in the case of Lawrence v. Hunt, (10 Wendell, 82,) where it was objected that in the former suit there was another plaintiff joined. Where the former suit was at law, this objection might have some weight, for it could not well be said that a contract of A and B with D and C was the same as that in another suit where A was sole plaintiff and D sole defendant. But this objection cannot apply where the first issue is in chancery, and parties collaterally interested are made parties to the litigation, that it may be *242 final, and not because they were legal parties to the original contract on which the litigation is founded. In such a case the pleadings may show the contract or subject-matter of the litigation to be the very same, and directly in issue; in the other, it could not be well so. As we are of opinion that there was no error in this instruction, it will not be necessary to notice the other points alluded to in the argument, this one being conclusive of the whole case.
The judgment of the Circuit Court is therefore affirmed, with costs.