Where an antenuptial contract was alleged to have been made, and
the affidavits of the parties claiming under it alleged that they
never possessed or saw it; that they had made diligent inquiry for
it, but were unable to learn its present existence or place of
existence; that inquiry had been made of the guardian of one of the
children, who said that he had never been in possession of it, and
did not know where it was; that inquiry had been made at the
recording offices in vain, and that the affiants believed it to be
lost; secondary proof of its contents ought to have been
admitted.
Whether recorded or not, it was binding upon the parties. If
recorded within the time prescribed by statute or if reacknowledged
and recorded afterwards, notice would thereby have been given to
all persons of its effect.
If it was regularly recorded in one state and the property upon
which it acted was removed to another state, the protection of the
contract would follow the property into the state into which it was
removed.
But where no suit was brought until eight or nine years after
the death of the husband, and then the one which was brought was
dismissed for want of prosecution, another suit against the
executors who had divided the property, comes too late.
Page 55 U. S. 254
The case is fully stated in the opinion of the Court.
The counsel for the appellants, after stating the case,
proceeded:
It appears, from the record, that the defendants, objected to
the reading of the papers of the marriage settlement, because the
affidavits of the complainants did not make out such a case of the
loss or destruction as would dispense with the production of the
original. The objection was sustained by the presiding judge. By
the ruling of the judge, the complainants' bill was ordered to be
dismissed.
It is submitted that the ruling of the judge was erroneous, and
if it should be sustained here, the complainants must fail in any
attempt to recover their rights, because they cannot be allowed to
introduce the only evidence on which they rest.
The evidence offered by the complainants, and rejected by the
court, was both competent and sufficient to satisfy a judge, when
discretion must on such questions regulate his judgment; and
especially so in the chancery jurisdiction of the court, where it
is usual to receive with a liberal latitude,
sub modo at
least, all evidence that can lead to a competent judgment on the
rights of the parties. The bill was filed by those who were seeking
their rights by discovery, and against the acts of those who had a
temptation to destroy the evidence against them. But it is
submitted that the question has been authoritatively ruled by the
court, and according to the adjudged cases on the same subject in
Alabama, where this case was tried, the evidence rejected should
have been admitted.
Tayloe v.
Riggs, 1 Pet. 591, 596;
S.C., 9 Warton
483;
Winn v.
Patterson, 9 Pet. 663,
34 U. S. 676;
S.C., 30 U. S. 5 Pet.
233,
30 U. S. 240,
30 U. S. 242;
Sturdevant v. Gaines, 5 Ala. 435;
Slerge v.
Clapton, 6 Ala. 589.
If the evidence rejected by the judge, as to the reading of the
marriage settlement, should have been received, as we think it
should, then it may become necessary to bring in review the
questions made by the defendants' answer.
Was the marriage settlement duly and legally recorded in South
Carolina. By the laws of South Carolina,
see act of 1786
and 1823 marriage settlements, according to the first act, are
required to be recorded in the office of the Secretary of State,
and by the second act also in the office of Register of Mesne
Conveyances, within three months after their execution, otherwise
they will be regarded as void at law. The marriage settlement, in
this case, was executed on t20 May, and if
Page 55 U. S. 255
recorded before 20 August, would have been duly recorded,
according to the requirements of the act of 1786. It appears from
Guiguard's official certificate that the paper was recorded in the
Register of Mesne Conveyances on 31 July, 1816, the day on which it
was proved by Young, one of the witnesses to it.
The certificate of Arthar, the Deputy Secretary of State, is not
definite as to the time when the paper was recorded in the office
of the Secretary of State. There is no doubt, however, that it had
been first recorded in that office, as such should have been done,
according to the act of 1786, which is the only act affecting this
case. We think such must be the conclusion of the court, as
scarcely any other fair inference could be drawn from the premises.
If such should be the holding of the court a second proposition
arises, was it necessary that it should have been recorded in
Alabama?
According to the tenor of the decisions of this Court, it was
not necessary that there should be such a recording to protect the
rights of the complainants against the claims of a subsequent
purchasers.
"A marriage settlement or deed, in favor of the wife, duly
executed and recorded in Virginia, will be good against the
creditors in the District of Columbia, although they may have had
no express notice.
Bank v. Lee, 13 Pet.
119,
38 U. S. 120. Such has been
the current of decisions in South Carolina and Alabama?"
But the complainants have a right, from the proof in the record,
to take refuge in the equity of their rights.
According to the evidence of W. R. Hamilton, Goree, the testator
of defendants, who seems to have been a shopkeeper, purchased the
slave in question, with express notice of complainants' title, by
the marriage settlement of their mother with Yancey. The testimony
of Hamilton was duly taken; for if defectively taken in the first
instance, the defendants had an opportunity, and were required, to
retake it, if they chose, by an express agreement of the
parties.
Such being their condition -- that is, purchasers with express
notice -- he, Goree, took the property subject to the acknowledged
claims of the complainants, and having taken under their title, he
should not be allowed to claim against it.
The doctrine of notice is well established. He who acquires a
legal title, having notice of the prior equity of another, becomes
a trustee for that other to the extent of his equity.
5 U. S. 1 Cranch
100.
If a man will purchase, with notice of another's right, giving a
consideration will not avail him. 2 Bridgman's Digest Vendors and
Purchasers, IX 691.
Page 55 U. S. 256
With respect to the operation of the statute of limitations upon
cases of trust in equity, the distinction is if the trust be
constituted by act of the parties, the possession of the trustee is
the possession of the
cestui que trust, and no length of
such possession will bar; but if a party is constituted a trustee
by the decree of a court of equity founded on fraud, or the like,
his possession is adverse, and the statute of limitations will run
from the time that the circumstances of the fraud were discovered.
2 Bridgman's Digest 252.
In the case of
Miller v. Kershaw, marriage settlement
was held void at law; in equity, however, the party claiming under
the settlement, would be protected where the purchaser had actual
notice of the settlement. Bayley's Equity 481.
If the foregoing propositions can be sustained, another question
arises, and that is can the defendants claim to be protected by the
statute of limitations? The complainants allege in their bill that
they were minors at the death of their mother, and could not assert
their rights under the marriage settlement as remaindermen after
the death of Yancey, their step-father. They aver, furthermore,
that they were ignorant as to the time of Yancey's death, from
their distant and separated situations. It is also stated expressly
in their bill, and it is a bill of discovery, that they were not
informed as of the time when a fraud had been committed upon their
rights, to-wit, when Yancey sold, and Goree purchased, with a full
disclosure and knowledge of their title. This reduces the parties
to the relation of trustee and
cestui que trust, and
exempts the complainant from the operation of the statute of
limitations.
Purchaser from mortgagor, with notice, cannot claim by
possession against a mortgage.
Thayer v. Craner, 1 McCord
395.
Court of Equity, bound by statute, upon legal title and demands,
except in cases which are excepted upon purely equitable
principles, such as trust, fraud &c.,
Van Rhyn v.
Vincent, 1 McCord 314.
In cases of fraud, it runs from the time the fraud has been
discovered.
Id., 4 Dess. 480.
If one intrudes upon the rights of an infant, and takes the
profits, he will be treated as guardian. His character is
fiduciary; the statute of limitations is inapplicable, and lapse of
time will not bar account.
Goodhue v. Barnwell, Rice,
Equity 239.
The ruling of the judge below was evidently in reference to a
single question, in which he clearly was in error. But,
independently of his decision, it may become the plaintiffs to
satisfy this Court this, if he had all these questions before him,
the defendants,
Page 55 U. S. 257
in any point of view, would have been entitled to a decree in
their favor.
Therefore it becomes the complainants to show that they were
entitled to a decree in their favor upon the entire merits of their
case.
Page 55 U. S. 260
MR. JUSTICE DANIEL delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellants, in the year 1847, filed their bill in the court
aforesaid against the appellees, seeking of them a discovery as to
certain slaves charged to have come to the possession of their
testator, and also an account and a recovery of the value,
increase, hires, and profits of those slaves, and claiming by name
a negro woman named Linda or Linder, together with her
children.
The bill charges that in the year 1816, Mrs. Ann Wood De Lane, a
widow lady residing in the State of South Carolina, and possessed
of valuable real estate, and of sundry slaves, being about to
intermarry with one John Yancey, an antenuptial contract was
entered into and executed between these parties. The stipulations
in this contract, which is made an exhibit with the bill, are to
the following effect: that
"All the estate of the said Ann, real and personal, should be
and remain for the joint use, support, and enjoyment of the said
John and Ann during their joint lives, and to the survivor of them
during his or her life; that the same should be free from any
debts, dues, demands, or contracts of said Yancey, unless it should
be under the following restrictions: that the said John Yancey
Page 55 U. S. 261
should not have the right to dispose of any portion of the
estate or property, real or personal, unless the said Ann should
consent thereto. That the said John should have the right to
dispose of the property upon his obtaining such consent. That the
said Ann should have the right of granting or withholding her
consent without resorting to the aid of a court of equity, or to
the intervention of a trustee. That all transfers by the said John
of any portion of the property with the consent of the said Ann,
should be valid, whether made for his separate use and benefit, or
for the joint use of himself and wife; and that the said John
should not be compellable to settle any equivalent for property so
transferred, unless there should be a stipulation between the
parties to that effect. That all of the estate, real or personal,
which should remain undisposed of during the joint lives of the
parties, should be for the use and benefit of the survivor; and at
his or her death should be equally divided amongst all the children
of the said Ann, both of this and of the former marriage. That none
of the aforesaid estate, real or personal, should be liable for any
debts, judgments, or executions, that might be in existence at the
date of the contract, or at any time thereafter against the said
John, unless by mutual consent of the parties."
The bill further charges that the marriage having taken place
between the said Ann Wood De Lane and John Yancey, they removed to
the State of Alabama, where the said Ann having died, the said
Yancey, who survived her, sold to James L. Goree, deceased, either
during the lifetime or after the death of the said Ann, but without
her consent, and in violation of the antenuptial agreement, several
of the slaves mentioned in that agreement. That the said Philip H.
De Lane, Martha Chiles, and Grace Lykes, who are the children of
Ann W. De Lane, by her first marriage, and her only heirs, were, at
the date of the sale aforesaid by Yancey, infants of tender
years.
The bill makes no persons defendants, and seeks relief against
none others, except the said Andrew B. Moore and James L. Goree,
the executors of James L. Goree, deceased.
The respondents deny all personal knowledge of a purchase of
slaves by their testator, of Yancey, but state that they have been
informed, and believe, that the decedent did, in his lifetime, and
in the lifetime of Ann W. Yancey, obtain from the said John Yancey,
in the year 1822, a negro woman slave, named Lindy, and her child
Becky, in payment of a store account contracted with the decedent,
whilst a merchant in Alabama, by said John and Ann Yancey, for
sugar, coffee, pork, butter, clothing, and other necessaries for
the support of the said John and Ann, and of the complainants, the
children of the said Ann,
Page 55 U. S. 262
and of the slaves conveyed in the marriage settlement. The
respondents deny that any slave mentioned in that agreement, except
the woman Lindy, ever came to the possession of their testator, and
after naming the offspring of Lindy, they aver that this female
slave and her offspring were never held by the respondents in any
other right than as the executors of James L. Goree, deceased; that
long before the institution of this suit, the respondents, as such
executors, had delivered over to the distributees of their
testator, all the slaves held by them, had settled their account as
executors, and received a discharge,
viz., on the 2d day
of January, 1846. Having made the above statements in answer to
interrogatories put by the bill, the respondents propound these
separate averments, and claim to be allowed the benefit of them as
if specially pleaded.
1. That their testator was a
bona fide purchaser of the
slave Lindy for valuable consideration, without notice of the
alleged marriage settlement.
2. That more than six years had elapsed between the death of
Yancey, who survived his wife, and the commencement of this suit,
and therefore the suit is barred by the statute of limitations.
3. That the said marriage settlement was made in the State of
South Carolina, and was not recorded according to the laws of that
state, and is therefore void, both as to the respondents and to
their testator, who was a
bona fide purchaser without
notice.
4. That if the marriage settlement had been properly recorded,
or was otherwise valid the sale of the slave Lindy was made with
the assent of the said Ann Yancey.
5. That the respondents received the said slaves as the
executors of the last will and testament of decedent, as a part of
his estate, and had, before this suit was commenced, disposed of
them according to the provisions of said will, by distribution and
delivery to the legatees or said estate, and that long before the
commencement of this suit, had made a final settlement of said
estate, and had been discharged from said executorship.
To the answer of the respondents, the complainants filed a
general replication, and upon the pleadings and proofs in the
cause, the district court, on the 7th of December, 1849, pronounced
a decree, dismissing the bill of the complainants, with costs. The
correctness of that decree we will proceed to consider.
The first question which presents itself, in the natural order
of investigation of the proceedings of the district court, is that
which was raised upon the admissibility in evidence, of an
authenticated copy of the antenuptial contract, upon the
Page 55 U. S. 263
sufficiency of the cause assigned for the nonproduction of the
original. The cause so assigned, was this. The three children of
Mrs. De Lane, with the husbands of the two daughters, depose that
they never possessed, nor ever saw the original contract; that they
have made diligent inquiry for it, but have been unable to learn
either its present existence, or place of existence -- and believe
that it has been lost or destroyed. And the son, Philip De Lane,
states farther, that he had made inquiry for it, first of John
Partridge, his guardian, who informed him that he had never been in
possession of it, and did not know where it was; that deponent had
also made inquiry for it at the Office of Mesne Conveyances, and at
the Office of the Secretary of State of South Carolina, but upon
search and inquiry it could not be found at either of those places,
and he believes that this instrument was either destroyed by said
Yancey, or by fire when the courthouse in Monroe County, in
Alabama, was burned in 1833 -- that the subscribing witnesses to
the agreement, he believes, after diligent inquiry, are dead. That
Yancey died in 1836, in Mississippi, utterly insolvent, and no
person ever administered on his estate. In disregard of these
affidavits, the district court refused to consider the copy of the
antenuptial contract as legal or admissible in the absence of the
original, and in this refusal, we think that court has erred. Upon
the most obvious principles of reason and justice, we think, that
the complainants could not have laid a stronger foundation for the
introduction of the secondary proof. The custody of the original
document, or the duty of preserving it, could in no view be brought
home to them. And its absence, therefore, over which they could
have had no control, and produced by no default of theirs, should
not have deprived them of the effect of that document to avail for
whatever it might be worth. This view of the question before us, is
strengthened by the obvious considerations, that no suspicion
justly attaches to the complainants from the nonproduction of the
original agreement, and that its exhibition was calculated rather
to corroborate, than to weaken their claims. The instances in which
secondary evidence is to be admitted, and the requisites demanded
by the courts to warrant its introduction, are treated of in the
elementary works on evidence, as for instance, in 2 Saunders on
Pleading and Evidence 833
et seq. But in a decision of
this Court, this subject has been dealt with in a manner so
strikingly apposite to the question now before us, as to warrant
particular notice thereof, as being in all respects, decisive of
that question. We allude to the decision of
Tayloe v.
Riggs, reported in 1 Pet. 591. That case presented
by no means so strong a claim for the introduction of secondary
evidence as does the
Page 55 U. S. 264
one now under consideration, for that was an application for
leave to substitute parol for written evidence, and not for the
substitution of an authenticated copy of a written and recorded
document in lieu of the original. In
Tayloe v. Riggs, the
Chief Justice lays down the law as follows:
"The rule of law is that the best evidence must be given of
which the nature of the thing is capable -- that is that no
evidence shall be received which presupposes greater evidence
behind in the party's possession or power. The withholding of that
better evidence raises a presumption that if produced, it might not
operate in his favor. For this reason, a party who is in possession
of an original paper or who has it in his power is not permitted to
give a copy in evidence or to prove its contents. When, therefore,
the plaintiff below offered to prove the contents of the written
contract on which this suit was instituted, the defendant might
very properly require the contract itself. It was itself superior
evidence of its contents to anything depending on the memory of a
witness. It was once in his possession, and the presumption was
that it was still so. It was necessary to do away this presumption,
or the secondary evidence must be excluded. How is it to be done
away? If the loss or destruction of the paper can be proved by a
disinterested witness, the difficulty is at once removed. But
papers of this description generally remain in possession of the
party himself, and their loss can in most instances be known only
to himself. If his own affidavit cannot be received, the loss of a
written contract the contents of which are well known to others or
a copy of which can be proved would amount to a complete loss of
his rights, at least in a court of law. The objection to receiving
the affidavit of the party is that no man can be a witness in his
own cause. This is undoubtedly a sound rule which ought never to be
violated. But many collateral questions arise in the progress of a
cause to which the rule does no apply. Questions which do not
involve the matter in controversy, but matters auxiliary to the
trial, which facilitate the preparation for it, often depend on the
oath of the party. An affidavit of the materiality of a witness,
for the purpose of obtaining a continuance, or a commission to take
a deposition, or an affidavit of his inability to attend, is
usually made by the party, and received without objection. So
affidavits to support a motion for a new trial are often received.
These cases, and others of the same character which might be
adduced, show that in many incidental questions that are addressed
to the court, and which do not affect the question to be tried by
the jury, the affidavit of the party is received. The testimony
which establishes the loss of the paper is addressed to the
court,
Page 55 U. S. 265
and does not relate to the contents of the paper. It is fact
which may be important as letting the party in to prove the justice
of the cause, but does not of itself prove anything in the cause.
As this fact is generally known only to the party himself, there
would seem to be a necessity for receiving his affidavit in support
of it."
The law, as thus clearly declared by this Court in
Tayloe v.
Riggs, is in strictest accordance with the rule prevailing in
the supreme court of the state within which the case before us was
decided. Thus, in the case of
Sturdevant v. Gaines,
reported in the 5th vol. Alabama Reports 435, that court thus
announces the rule by which they are governed with respect to the
introduction of secondary evidence.
"In the recent case of
Jones v. Scott, 2 Ala. 61, it is
stated that no fixed rule can be laid down as applicable to this
class of cases; that in general search must be made where the lost
paper was last known to be. These remarks are quite applicable to
this case. Search was made where the paper was last known to be
only three days before."
Again:
"We cannot say that half an hour's search in a lawyer's office
was not sufficient to ascertain whether the paper was not where it
was left, nor, in the absence of any fact indicating that it might
be found elsewhere, can we perceive that there was any necessity to
search elsewhere for it. If the admission that the paper, on
further search where it was last known to be or elsewhere, might
still be discovered would preclude the secondary evidence, it would
annihilate the rule in all cases where the lost paper was not
proved to be destroyed as well as lost, as otherwise there must
always be a possibility that it may be found."
With regard to the position insisted upon in the answers that
the antenuptial contract was void for the failure to record it
within three months from its date in conformity with the law of
South Carolina, that position, however maintainable it might be so
far as the instrument was designed to operate by mere legal or
constructive effect on creditors and purchasers, becoming such
before it was recorded, or, in the event of its never being
recorded, cannot be supported to the extent that by the failure to
record it within the time prescribed by the statute, the deed would
thereby be void to all intents and purposes. Such a deed would,
from its execution, be binding at common law
inter partes,
though never recorded, and if, after expiration of the time
prescribed by statute, it should be reacknowledged and then
recorded, either upon such reacknowledgement or upon proof of
witnesses, it would, from the period of that reacknowledgement and
admission to record, be restored to its full effect of notice,
which would, by construction, have followed from its being recorded
originally within the time
Page 55 U. S. 266
prescribed by law. These conclusions are sustained by numerous
decisions. We refer in support of them to the cases of
Turner
v. Stip, 1 Wash. 319;
Currie v. Donald, 2 Wash. 58;
Eppes v. Randolph, 2 Call 125;
Guerrant v.
Anderson, 4 Ran. 208;
Roanes v. Archer, 4 Leigh 550;
Woods v. Owings &
Smith, 1 Cranch 239;
Lessee of
Sicard v. Davis, 6 Pet. 124.
The antenuptial agreement between Ann Wood De Lane and John
Yancey is proved to have been executed on the 20th day of May,
1816; if it was admitted to record at any time before the 20th of
August in the same year, it operated as notice to all creditors and
purchasers becoming such subsequently to the execution of that
agreement; if it was not recorded until the 14th of November in the
year 1816, it could be construction operate as notice from the
latter period only, but as between the parties, and with regard to
subsequent creditors and purchasers with notice, it operated from
the period of its execution. The sole purpose of recording the deed
is that those who might deal with the parties thereto or with the
subjects it comprised should have knowledge of the true condition
of both, and if such knowledge is presumed -- nay, established by
legal inference from the fact that the deed has been recorded --
a fortiori it must be established by actual notice.
It has been made a ground of defense in the answers in the court
below, and it has also been insisted upon in argument here, that
admitting the antenuptial contract to have been recorded in the
State of South Carolina, and in consequence thereof to have been so
operative as to affect with notice creditors and purchasers within
that state, yet that upon the removal of the parties, carrying with
them the property into another state or jurisdiction, the influence
of the contract, for the protection of the property, would be
wholly destroyed, and the subject attempted to be secured would be
open to claims by creditors or purchasers subsequently coming into
existence. The position here advanced is not now assumed for the
first time in argument in this Court. It has upon a former occasion
been pressed upon its attention and has been looked into with care,
and unless it be the intention of the court to retrace the course
heretofore adopted, this may be now, as it formerly was, called an
adjudged question. The case of the
United
States Bank v. Lee, 13 Pet. 107, brought directly
up for the examination of this Court the effect of a judgment and
execution obtained by a subsequent creditor in the District of
Columbia upon property found within that district, but which had
been settled upon the wife of a debtor by a deed executed and
recorded in Virginia according to the laws of that state, the
husband and wife being, at the time of
Page 55 U. S. 267
making the instrument, inhabitants of the State of Virginia. The
question was, by MR. JUSTICE CATRON, who delivered the opinion of
the Court, elaborately investigated and the cases from the
different states, founded upon their registry acts, carefully
collected. The cases of
Smith v. Bruce's Administrator,
from 2d of Harris & Johnson and of
Crenshaw v.
Anthony, from Martin & Yerger's Reports 110, cited by the
learned judge, fully sustain his reasoning upon the point. This
Court come unhesitatingly and clearly to the conclusion that the
deed of settlement, executed and recorded in favor of Mrs. Lee in
conformity with the laws of Virginia, protected her rights in the
subject settled against the judgment of the subsequent creditor in
the District of Columbia. We should not be disposed to disturb the
doctrine laid down in the case of
Bank of the United States v.
Lee and in the decisions of the state courts of Maryland and
Tennessee above mentioned if the rights of the parties turned upon
the operation of the contract as constituting notice, or upon the
proof of knowledge on the part of Goree, the purchaser from Yancey,
of the existence of the marriage contract. But we think that the
rights of the parties to this controversy should not be made to
depend upon any such incident as the existence of notice of the
contract, either actual or constructive.
It has been premised in the statement of the pleadings in this
case that the only defendants in the court below were the executors
of James L. Goree, deceased, called upon in their representative
character, and in no other. The marriage contract between Ann W. De
Lane and John Yancey was executed in 1816. It is proved that Yancey
died in 1833, or 1834. The complainants are the children of Mrs.
Yancey by her first marriage, so that at the time of the death of
Yancey, the youngest of those children, if born immediately
preceding the second marriage, could not have been younger than
seventeen years; the elder children were then probably nearly or
fully at majority. After the death of Yancey, the record discloses
no claim on the part of the complainants, nor any effort by them to
recover the property settled by the contract earlier than 1842,
eight or nine years after Yancey's death; at which last period, it
is said, there was a suit pending in one of the state courts,
against the testator of the appellees, but which suit, after being
revived against the appellees, subsequently to the death of their
testator, was, in the year 1843, dismissed for the want of
prosecution. The bill in this suit was filed in January, 1847, at
an interval of thirty-one years after the execution of the marriage
agreement and of fourteen years after the death of Yancey, from
which last event the complainants had an undoubted and
unobstructed
Page 55 U. S. 268
power to seek their rights under that contract, whatever they
were.
If mere tardiness in asserting their pretensions were all that
could be imputed to the appellants, this of itself would place them
in a position which could not commend them the countenance of
courts of justice; but this delay is by no means the only or the
least imputation resting upon the course of the appellants, for we
see that after calling upon the appellees for satisfaction of their
demand, the appellants abandoned that demand, proclaiming thereby
to the representatives of Goree, if indeed they were then in
possession of the subject, permission to apply it in conformity
with the will of their testator. The appellants, it is not
pretended, ever held or claimed the subject in dispute, except in
their representative capacity and in trust for the creditors and
legatees of their testator. In the interval between the abandonment
of their first and the institution of their second demand by the
complainants, those executors have, in fulfillment of their trust,
handed over the subject to those for whom they held it under the
will, have accounted with the authorities to whom they were
responsible, and have received from those authorities a full
acquittance. Under these circumstances, to hold them liable to the
demands of the appellants would in effect be to render penal the
regular discharge of their duty.
This aspect of the cause we regard as fully warranting the
decree of the district court dismissing the bill of the
complainants -- that decree is therefore
Affirmed.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the District Court of the United States for the Middle
district of Alabama, and was argued by counsel. On consideration
whereof, it is now here ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this
Court that the decree of the said district court in this cause be
and the same is hereby affirmed with costs.
