United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Graham v. Railroad Company, 102 U.S. 148 (1880)

Graham v. Railroad Company

102 U.S. 148

Syllabus

1. Where a corporation, solvent at the time, and having no actual intent to defraud creditors, disposes of its lands for an inadequate consideration or by a voluntary conveyance, its subsequent creditors cannot question the transaction.

2. Semble that where a corporation has waived, or omitted to exercise, the right to institute proceedings to recover lands of which it has been defrauded, such right does not inure to the benefit of subsequent creditors or purchasers.

This is a bill in equity filed by Lawrence G. Graham and Donald D. Scott against the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad Company, the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company, Moses Kneeland, James Ludington, Byron Kilbourn, and others, to subject certain real estate in the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to the satisfaction of certain judgments recovered by the complainants against the first-named company for an indebtedness on contracts arising after its sale and conveyance of that real estate, to Charles D. Nash. The defendants deraign title through him.

Page 102 U. S. 149

The court below dismissed the bill, whereupon the complainants appealed here. The remaining facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Page 102 U. S. 151