Christy v. Findley; Christy v. Young. WILLIAM CHRISTY, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. JAMES D. FINDLEY. Mr. Justice CURTIS. The amended pleas in this case, being five in number, are demurred to, and the demurrers are sustained for the reasons assigned in the opinion in the case of Christy v. Scott. The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings. ORDER. This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the District Court of the United States for the District of Texas, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that the judgment of the said District Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby, reversed, with costs, and that this cause be, and the same is hereby, remanded to the said District Court, for further proceedings to be had therein in conformity to the opinion of this court, and as to law and justice shall appertain. WILLIAM CHRISTY, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. WILLIAM YOUNG. Mr. Justice CURTIS. In this case, the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth pleas, are demurred to, and the demurrers are sustained, for the reasons assigned in the opinion in the case of Christy v. Scott. The tenth plea in this case of the ten years' limitation law of Texas, is bad, for the same reasons as the plea of the three years' statute pleaded in that case. The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings. This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the District Court of the United States for the District of Texas, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that the judgment of the said District Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby, reversed, with costs, and that this cause be, and the same is hereby, remanded to the said District Court for further proceedings to be had therein, in conformity to the opinion of this court, and as to law and justice shall appertain. WILLIAM CHRISTY, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. HIRAM HENLEY. Mr. Justice CURTIS. In this case, the fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth pleas, are demurred to, and the demurrers are sustained for the reasons assigned in the opinion in the cases of Christy v. Scott, and Christy v. Young. The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings. ORDER. This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the District Court of the United States for the District of Texas, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that the judgment of the said District Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby, reversed, with costs, and that this cause be, and the same is hereby, remanded to the said District Court for further proceedings to be had therein, in conformity to the opinion of this court, and as to law and justice shall appertain. STEPHEN W. DOSS AND STEWART NEWELL, APPELLANTS, v. WILLIAM TYACK AND LINDLEY MURRAY. A court has a right to set aside its own judgment or decree, dismissing a bill in chancery, at the same term in which the judgment or decree was rendered, on discovering its own error in the law, or that the consent of the complainants to such dismissal was obtained by fraud.1 1 CITED. Goddard v. Ordway, 11 Otto, 752; State of Nevada v. District Court, 16 Nev., 372. "The general power of the court over its own judgments, orders, and decrees, in both civil and criminal Doss et al. v. Tyack et al. [*298 *A verdict on an issue to try whether a sale was fraudulent, finding the same to be fraudulent, will not be set aside on a certificate or affidavit of some of the jurors, afterwards made, as to what they meant. A Chancellor does not need a verdict to inform his conscience, when the answer denies fraud in the abstract, whilst it admits all the facts and circumstances necessary to constitute it, in the concrete.2 THIS was an appeal from the District Court of the United States for the State of Texas. A statement of the facts is contained in the opinion of the court. It was argued by Mr. Allen and Mr. O. F. Johnson, with whom was Mr. Hale, for the appellant, and Mr. Sherwood, for the appellee. The points, raised by the counsel for the appellant, were the following: I. The complainants having utterly failed to make out their case, by proving the material allegations and charges contained in the original and amended bills of complaint, the defendants were entitled to a decree of dismissal. II. The property of the copartnership confided to Newell, and especially the goods sold to Edgar, were not misapplied, but disposed of in conformity with the intendment of the copartnership agreement. By this it is manifest that the partnership was not intended as a pure mercantile establishment, but one for the transaction of a "commission, general, and auction business." Part. Agree't., Art. 1, Pr. 2; of a business "new and experimental in its nature "-Id., Art. 9; a business connected with the operations of the "Galveston Company," which Newell, by more than two years' labor and great expense, had "paved the way for "; and which the fifth article of the said agreement refers to (there being nothing else in the case to which it could by possibility refer,) in express terms, viz. that, in consideration of "the expense and labor heretofore incurred by Stewart Newell, in paving the way for the contemplated business, he shall be entitled to one quarter of the net profits, before division." cases, during the existence of the term at which they are first made, is undeniable." Lange, Ex parte, 18 Wall., 163. S. P. Bassett v. United States, 9 Wall., 38. But after the expiration of the term, a circuit court has not power to set aside a decree in equity. Cameron v. McRoberts, 3 Wheat., 591; Scott v. Blaine, Baldw., 287; Brush v. Robbins, 3 McLean, 486; McMicken v. 2 Where the court can decide from the proof before it, an issue should not be awarded. United States v. Sampeyrac, Hempst., 118; Howe v. Williams, 2 Fish. Pat. Cas., 395; Goodyear v. Providence Rubber Co., Id., 499. III. The creditors, in their instructions, refer to "agreements and understandings" of Newell with his partners and themselves; thereby, admitting themselves to be privy to the said partnership agreement, and that they gave credit to the copartners, in the business thereby contemplated. The case contains no proof of any other agreement or understanding, to which they could pretend to refer. IV. The creditors obtained, by a species of moral coercion, which their position enabled them to use, the primary concurrence of Tyack & Murray with themselves, in the ap *299] pointment of William E. Warren as their mutual agent, and in their instructions, which Tyack approved, prescribing the management to be used by Warren, in his interviews with Newell, and in conducting the business confided to him, after his arrival in Texas. The suit was manifestly the result of a conspiracy between the creditors and complainants; the object being to obtain a dissolution of the partnership, a distribution of the assets in Newell's hands, or to cause him "to place the merchandise in the hands" of Warren, "as trustee for the creditors, or Captain Tyack"; the creditors, on their part, agreeing not to proceed against the firm of "William Tyack & Co.," in New York, for the space of sixty days; and that the interests of Tyack should be protected, and his instructions, touching the suit against Newell, strictly followed. V. The purchase of the goods by Doss, was for a valuable and adequate consideration, without notice of any intended fraud, on the part of Newell, made for the benefit of all the partners, and within the scope of the "new, experimental, and general" business, described in the partnership agreement. The verdict does not find the purchaser guilty of any fraud, and the jurors depose that they did not intend to charge him with fraud. It declares the "sale," but not the purchase, fraudulent as to the complainants. Anderson & Wilkins v. Tompkins et al., 1 Brock., 456. This finding did not authorize the annulling of the sale. VI. Referring to the direction of the creditors, requiring their agent to be governed by the instructions of Captain Tyack, the several letters of Tyack & Murray to Newell, advising and urging him to sell the goods; their subsequent approval of the sale, after ample time to judge, and referring to their confederacy against Newell, before mentioned; the sale was authorized before, sanctioned at the time, and confirmed, after it was consummated, in the most deliberate manner by both the complainants and the creditors. VII. All matters of complaint, embraced in the bill in this Doss et al. v. Tyack et al. cause, excepting the said sale, were included and adjudicated in the suit of these complainants against Newell, commenced and tried in the State Court. The judgment decides the merits of the cause, is conclusive of all the said matters, and remains in full force. It directed a restoration of the goods to Newell-they having been taken out of his hands by process in the cause. After such restoration, the said goods were sold to Doss, and this judgment was a full authority for him to purchase them. VIII. The price paid by Doss for the goods, was near $2,000 *more than their value as estimated by the complainants, and near $4,000 more than that esti- [*300 mated by the witnesses. It consisted of $4,000 equivalent to cash advanced, and the remainder in lands, amounting to 6,485 acres, and worth much more than $7,753, as testified by the witnesses. One of the tracts, containing 177 acres, is estimated by Mr. Thompson, a witness well qualified to judge, as worth $30 per acre. Newell, in the exercise of a sound discretion, arising from his business connections with the complainants, and expressly devolved upon him by their advice and directions, and acting in conformity with the professed desire of the creditors contained in this 5th instruction, declaring that they wished "no wanton sacrifice of property for the immediate payment of the whole or a portion of their claims," could not have made a sale of the goods more beneficial to all the parties interested, than the one negotiated with Mr. Doss. IX. Is it respectfully insisted, that the issue directed by the court "to determine whether the sale of the goods was or was not fraudulent as to the complainants," was defective and immaterial, and, for this cause, improperly granted. The verdict must conform to, and correspond with, the issue—that is, find its affirmative or negative, and nothing else. If the jury find the former, viz., that the sale was fraudulent as to the complainants, it would be incompetent for them, under this issue, to go further, and determine also which of the defendants perpetrated the fraud, or whether they combined together, and were jointly chargeable. Such a finding could not authorize a decree setting aside the sale, nor in any way properly influence the conscience of the court. Such a decree would have to rest on proof in the cause, dehors the verdict, that the purchaser was a party to the fraud; and whether such proof existed or not, the verdict could be of no possible service or utility to the court. Hence the court will reverse or disregard the order directing the issue, and determine itself the character of the sale. VOL. XIV.-21 321 |