Under a written contract, J. was to build a road for a railroad
company for $29,000, and to have possession of the road and run and
use it till he should be paid. He completed the road, but was not
paid, and while in possession, was forcibly ejected by the company.
In an action against it for forcible entry and detainer, he had
judgment. Meantime, another company purchased the road, but before
that, by a written agreement between J. and the first company, the
amount due him under the contract was fixed at $25,000. The
judgment was affirmed by this Court, but before any judgment was
entered on its mandate, the second company tendered to J. the
$25,000 and interest, which he refused, and it then filed a bill in
equity for a perpetual injunction against J. from taking possession
of the road, and obtained an order for a temporary injunction, on
paying the money tendered, into a depository of the court, to its
credit, with the right to J. to receive the money when he pleased.
J. defended the suit on the ground that the agreement as to the
$25,000 was conditional and temporary and that the condition had
not been fulfilled. The court decreed that on the plaintiff's
paying into court the costs of the suit, and $1,000 for the
expenses of J. in preparing to take possession of the road, a
perpetual injunction should issue. Both parties appealed.
Held:
(1) The agreement as to the $25,000 was binding on J., and its
terms could not be varied by showing a contemporaneous verbal
understanding that the $25,000 was to be paid in cash in a limited
time.
(2) The tender and the payment into court changed the condition
of affairs, and the right of J. to possession of the road
ceased.
(3) The case was distinguishable from that of
Ballance
v. Forsyth, 24 How. 183, and like that of
Parker v. The
Judges, 12 Wheat. 561.
(4) The appeal by the plaintiff did not involve an amount
sufficient to give this Court jurisdiction.
The Court stated the case as follows:
Page 141 U. S. 603
On the 23d of April, 1879, A. H. Johnson, of Helena, Arkansas,
and the Iron Mountain and Helena Railroad Company, an Arkansas
corporation, entered into a written agreement, whereby Johnson, in
consideration of $29,000 to be paid to him as thereinafter
stipulated, agreed to complete the grading, tieing, culverting,
clearing, and grubbing on the company's railroad between its
junction with the Arkansas Midland Railroad, eight miles west from
Helena, and the Town of Marianna, in Lee County, Arkansas, a
distance of about eighteen miles, to furnish certain cross-ties and
square timber, to lay the iron rails, and to place the road between
those points in good running order, the rails, fastenings, spikes,
and switches to be furnished by the railroad company, and the road
to be completed on or before September 1, 1879; $1,000 to be paid
as each mile of the road was completed and ready for the running of
locomotives and cars thereon, and the balance when the track should
be laid and the superstructure completed to Marianna, and ready for
the running of locomotives and cars. It was further agreed that all
moneys which might be collected by a committee of citizens
appointed on behalf of certain citizens of Helena, who had
subscribed money to aid in building the railroad, should be paid by
said committee to Johnson in discharge,
pro tanto, of the
contract; that until the $29,000 should be fully paid, Johnson
should have the possession of the road and the right to run, use,
and control the same, but such right of possession should cease and
determine, and Johnson should deliver up possession of the road to
the company, as soon as the $29,000 should be fully paid to him;
that the company might at any time terminate the contract by paying
to Johnson the value of the work then done by him, and that, in
estimating the value of the work, the whole value, to the Town of
Marianna, should be fixed at $29,000, and the proportion then
performed by Johnson was to be paid for at the rate of $29,000 for
the whole. There was a provision for arbitration in case the
parties should not agree as to the value of the work, and the
company agreed to furnish to Johnson the iron rails, fastenings,
and spikes from time to time as rapidly as he might be ready to lay
the same.
Page 141 U. S. 604
Having completed the road, and not having been fully paid
according to the contract, Johnson, in September, 1880, was
forcibly dispossessed by the President of the company. He brought
his action against the company for forcible entry and detainer in
the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of
Arkansas, and while it was pending, and on the 26th of October,
1882, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway Company, an
Arkansas corporation, became the purchaser of the road from the
Iron Mountain and Helena Company, and on the 15th of December,
1882, took possession of the entire line of the latter company,
extending from Forest City to Helena, and including the eighteen
miles of track in question, and was afterwards made a party to said
action. In that action, a judgment was rendered in favor of Johnson
on March 14, 1883, and on a writ of error from this Court by the
company it was affirmed,
119 U. S. 119 U.S.
608, on January 10, 1887.
Johnson took no immediate steps to get possession of the
eighteen miles of road under his judgment. Before the purchase of
the property by the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railway
Company, and on October 6, 1881, and while the forcible entry and
detainer suit was pending, Johnson and the Iron Mountain and Helena
Company entered into the following agreement:
"It is agreed between A. H. Johnson and the Iron Mountain and
Helena Railroad Company as follows,
viz., that the amount
due said Johnson for constructing that part of said Iron Mountain
and Helena Railroad between the former junction with the Arkansas
Midland Railroad and the Town of Marianna, under a contract
executed in April, 1879, is the sum of $25,000 at this date, and it
is further agreed that the suit now pending in the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas at Helena is to
be continued at the October term. A.D. 1881."
"[Signed] IRON M'T'N AND HELENA R. Co."
"Per WM. BAILEY,
Pres't"
"A. H. JOHNSON"
Page 141 U. S. 605
The suit referred to in that agreement was the suit for forcible
entry and detainer brought by Johnson. Before any judgment was
entered on the mandate of this Court, and on August 24, 1887, the
St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Company tendered to Johnson
$33,825, being the $25,000 mentioned in the agreement of October 6,
1881, and interest on the amount at the rate of six percent per
annum from that date to the date of the tender, which tender
Johnson refused.
On this state of facts, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and
Southern Company filed a bill in equity against Johnson, as a
citizen of Ohio, in the District Court of the United States for the
Eastern District of Arkansas setting forth the contract of April
23, 1879, and the other facts hereinbefore stated, the fact that
the plaintiff had been made a party defendant to the forcible entry
and detainer suit, the affirmance of the judgment in that suit by
this Court, the agreement of October 6, 1881, the fact of the
tender of the $33,825, and that Johnson was preparing to take
actual possession of the eighteen miles of track, so as to cut off
the plaintiff from all use of its line of railway from Marianna to
Helena. The bill prayed for an injunction to restrain Johnson from
any interference with the eighteen miles of track, and for a
perpetual injunction against him from attempting to take possession
of it or interfere with it.
On the filing of the bill, an order was made by the court that
on the payment by the plaintiff into the German National Bank of
Little Rock, Ark., the depository of the court, to the credit of
the court, of the $33,825, and the payment to the clerk of all
costs in the forcible entry and detainer suit, a temporary
injunction should issue enjoining Johnson from issuing any process
to put the plaintiff out of the possession of the eighteen miles of
track, or disturbing its possession thereof, until the further
order of the court in the premises, and that Johnson might receive
said sum from the depository at his pleasure, without prejudice to
any of his rights, and particularly his right to receive any
further sum that might be due him, and for which he had a lien on
the eighteen miles of
Page 141 U. S. 606
track, or a right to the possession of the same, as security
therefor.
Johnson appeared in the suit and put in an answer to the bill,
setting up that the agreement of October 6, 1881, was not in the
nature of an account stated, but was, and was intended to be,
conditional and temporary, and that the condition had not been
fulfilled. To this answer there was a replication, and proofs were
taken.
On Final hearing, the court made a decree that on the plaintiff
paying into the registry of the court the costs of the suit and
$1,000 for the amount expended by Johnson in necessary preparations
to take possession of the eighteen miles of track and operate the
same as required by law, Johnson should be perpetually enjoined
from executing the judgment at law in his favor for the possession
of the eighteen miles, and that if the plaintiff should fail to pay
those sums into the registry of the court for the use of Johnson
within ninety days from the date of the decree, the temporary
injunction should be dissolved and Johnson might sue out proper
process and execute the judgment at law in his favor for the
possession of the eighteen miles of road. Both parties took appeals
to this Court.
Page 141 U. S. 609
MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is contended by Johnson that the court below had no
jurisdiction to grant the injunction prayed for in the bill,
because he had been adjudged, in the suit for forcible entry and
detainer, to be entitled to the possession of the eighteen miles of
the road, and a writ of restitution had been ordered to issue to
place him in possession thereof; that it is not alleged that
anything had arisen since the institution of the forcible entry and
detainer suit, or the rendition of the judgment in it, which made
it inequitable that such judgment should be enforced; that the
relations between the parties were entirely contractual, and
Johnson was seeking nothing not provided for by the contract of
April 23, 1879; that the bill in this suit does not allege that
such contract was obtained by fraud, accident, mistake, or
surprise; that the plaintiff in this suit is a trespasser in
possession, after full defense made by it to the forcible entry and
detainer suit, and, without restitution, seeks, through the
interposition of a court of equity, to retain the fruits of its
trespass and nullify the judgment at law, and that the bill in this
suit does not seek to settle the rights of the parties under the
contract of April 23, 1879, nor does the decree thereon settle such
rights, but the order of injunction and the decree nullify such
contract by substituting a sum of money as security to Johnson,
instead of possession of the road, as provided therein.
But we are of opinion, as contended by the plaintiff, that on
the evidence in the case, the agreement of October 6, 1881, was a
settlement of the amount due to Johnson, and was and is binding
upon him. The tender by the plaintiff to Johnson of the $33,825,
followed as it was by the payment into the German National Bank of
that sum, on August 26, 1887, to the credit of the court, as
appears by the record, changed the
Page 141 U. S. 610
condition of affairs, and entitled the plaintiff to the relief
by injunction asked for because it showed that the contract of
April 23, 1879, had been fully complied with by the plaintiff, as
the successor of the Iron Mountain and Helena Railroad Company, and
that Johnson had no further right to the possession of the road.
The $25,000, with interest from October 6, 1881, was substituted
for the $29,000, and the contract of April 23, 1879, is to be read
as if the sum of $25,000, instead of $29,000, had been mentioned in
it. Johnson was to have possession of the road, and the right to
run, use, and control it only as security for the payment of the
money, and was to deliver up possession of it to the Iron Mountain
and Helena Company, of which the plaintiff is the successor, as
soon as the money should be paid. It was paid by the tender and
deposit of the $25,000, with interest, and the right of Johnson
further to retain possession of the road, or to interfere with it,
ceased.
This case is not like that of
Ballance v.
Forsyth, 24 How. 183. There, this Court had, in
Ballance v.
Forsyth, 13 How. 18, affirmed a judgment in
ejectment against Ballance. After the mandate went down from this
Court, Ballance filed a bill in equity setting forth the same
titles that were involved in the ejectment suit and praying relief,
on certain special grounds, by enjoining the execution of the
judgment. The bill was dismissed and this Court affirmed the decree
on the ground that Ballance could not appeal from the judgments of
the circuit court and of this Court to a court of chancery on the
relative merit of the legal titles involved in the controversy
which they had adjudicated. But in the present case, the relief in
equity does not involve a reexamination of the merits of the
original controversy, but is based on grounds arising subsequently
to and independently of such controversy. The question raised as to
the jurisdiction of the court below in this suit is disposed of by
the ruling in
Parker v. The
Judges, 12 Wheat. 561, where, while a writ of error
was pending in this Court, a bill in equity was filed in the court
below, and an injunction issued to stay proceedings on the
judgment.
Page 141 U. S. 611
After the judgment had been affirmed here, an order was issued
by this Court to show cause why that court should not issue an
execution on the judgment. It was contended that an injunction
could not be awarded while the record was before this Court on a
writ of error. This point was thus disposed of, Chief Justice
Marshall delivering the opinion of the Court:
"We do not think this a valid objection. The suit in chancery
does not draw into question the judgments and proceedings at law,
or claim a right to revise them. It sets up an equity independently
of the judgment, which admits the validity of that judgment, but
suggests reasons why the party who has obtained it ought not to
avail himself of it. It proposes to try a question entirely new,
which has not been and could not be litigated at law. It may be
brought before the commencement of a suit at law, pending such
suit, or after its decision by the highest law tribunal."
See also Marshall v. Holmes, ante, 141 U. S. 589, and
cases there cited.
Although the agreement in regard to the $25,000 was made October
6, 1881, and the judgment in the forcible entry and detainer suit
was not rendered until March 14, 1883, such agreement could have
constituted no defense to that suit. It was the tender of the money
which laid the foundation for the injunction suit, and, although
the money might have been tendered at an earlier day, the delay in
tendering it deprived the company of no rights and conferred none
on Johnson. As was said by this Court in the forcible entry and
detainer suit,
118 U. S. 119 U.S.
608,
119 U. S. 612,
the questions there raised by the company in regard to the original
contract of April 23, 1879, and to the right of Johnson to hold
possession of the road, were immaterial. Equally, the equitable
right involved in the present suit could not have been material in
the former suit, even if such right had then existed.
The written agreement of October 6, 1881, is full and complete,
and its terms cannot be varied, qualified, or contradicted by
showing, as is sought to be done, a contemporaneous verbal
understanding that the $25,000 mentioned in the agreement was to be
paid in cash in a limited time, or satisfactory securities
delivered in a limited time, or the written contract
Page 141 U. S. 612
was to be void. The agreement of October 6, 1881, is, on its
face, an absolute one that the amount due to Johnson under the
prior contract of April 23, 1879, was the sum of $25,000 on October
6, 1881, and it cannot be reduced by parol evidence to a mere offer
that in a certain contingency Johnson would accept the sum
specified in full for the sum provided in the original
contract.
As to the appeal by the plaintiff, which calls in question so
much of the decree as imposes upon it the costs of the suit and the
payment of the $1,000, that appeal must be dismissed, because it
does not involve an amount sufficient to give this Court
jurisdiction of it.
In No. 60, the decree is affirmed, with costs against
Johnson, and in No. 71 the appeal is dismissed for want of
jurisdiction.
MR. JUSTICE LAMAR, dissenting.
I 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. ยง 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 defense 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
Page 141 U. S. 613
in 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 defense
in the suit at law.
Marshall v. Holmes, ante, 141 U. S. 589, and
cases there cited. I do not think that the state of facts which
appear in this record presents such a case. It is more like the
case of
Ballance v.
Forsyth, 24 How. 183. In that case, Ballance
brought 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.
54
U. S. 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
54 U. S. 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 merits 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
wrongdoer, asking for relief from the legal effects of his own
willfully illegal act. In speaking of the complainant as a
trespasser and wrongdoer, I am sustained by the statement in the
bill itself to the effect that while the action of forcible entry
and detainer was pending, the complainant bought the property of
which the appellant was dispossessed,
Page 141 U. S. 614
took 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 of 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 being a good defense, 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 or fault.
I do not think that the written 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 while the possessory suit
was pending, 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
Page 141 U. S. 615
obtained. 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 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.
