Harriman v. Northern Securities Co.

197 U.S. 244 (1905)

HARRIMAN
v.
NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY.

No. 512.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued March 1, 2, 1905. Decided March 6, 1905. Opinion delivered April 3, 1905. CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT.

Mr. William D. Guthrie, with whom Mr. D.T. Watson, Mr. R.S. Lovett, Mr. Maxwell Evarts, Mr. John F. Dillon, Mr. R.V. Lindabury and Mr. Bainbridge Colby were on the brief, for petitioners.

Mr. D.T. Watson also for petitioners.

Mr. Elihu Root, with whom Mr. Francis Lynde Stetson was on the brief, for respondent.

Mr. John G. Johnson, with whom Mr. John W. Griggs and Mr. W.P. Clough were on the brief, also for respondent.

Mr. Thomas Thacher also submitted a brief for respondent.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

In applying to this court for the writ of certiorari counsel for complainants insisted that the Circuit Court of Appeals had practically disposed of the entire controversy on the merits, although its decree only reversed the order of the Circuit Court granting the preliminary injunction. We accepted that view and granted the writ, in the circumstances, notwithstanding the decree was not final. In our opinion the record presented the whole case to that court, in such wise, that it might properly have been finally disposed of in terms by its decree, in accordance with the well settled rule upon that subject. Mast, Foos & Co. v. Stover Manufacturing Co., 177 U.S. 485, 495; Castner v. Coffman, 178 U.S. 168, 183; Mayor &c. of Knoxville v. Africa, 77 Fed. Rep. 501.

In Western Union Telegraph Company v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company et al., 195 U.S. 540, 547, the Circuit Court had granted a preliminary injunction, 120 Fed. Rep. 981, which was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. 123 Fed. Rep. 33. The telegraph company moved that the decree be modified so as to direct the dismissal of the bill. The motion was denied, and the telegraph company took an appeal to this court. Subsequently the Circuit Court sua sponte entered an order dismissing the bill, and the telegraph company appealed therefrom to the Circuit Court of Appeals. 195 U.S. 547. We then granted a certiorari, and, considering both appeals together, affirmed the decree of dismissal.

In the present case we granted the certiorari, at the instance of complainants, before the case had gone back to the Circuit Court, and shall do what the Circuit Court of Appeals might have done, that is, finally dispose of the case by our direction to the Circuit Court.

Complainants deny that the Securities Company became the owner of the Northern Pacific Railway shares, and assert to the contrary that the company held the shares as a trustee or a bailee for complainants.

And the principal ground on which this contention is rested is that it was so adjudicated by the Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota in the Government suit, by the decree of April 9, 1903, affirmed by this court.

It may be said in passing that complainants were not parties of record to that suit, and that they were not parties by representation, if the effect of the transfers as between the parties thereto had been in issue and the vital conflict between complainants and the corporation, now set up, then existed, which would destroy the community of interest on which the rule of representation is founded. And, on the other hand, in that suit the Northern Securities Company, at a time when complainant Harriman was a director, answered that: "Every share of the Great Northern Company and the Northern Pacific Company acquired by this defendant has been, and, so long as it remains the property of the defendant, will continue to be, held and owned by it in its own right, and not under any agreement, promise, or understanding on its part, or on the part of its stockholders and officers, that the same shall be held, owned, or kept by it for any period of time whatever, or under any agreement that in any manner restricts or controls to any extent any use of the same which might lawfully be exercised by any other owner of said stocks."

But we are of opinion that the Circuit Court did not determine the quality of the transfer as between the defendants themselves, nor was that the purpose of the Government proceedings.

The decree of April 9, 1903, adjudged that defendants had theretofore entered into a combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade and commerce; that all stock of either of the railway companies then held or owned by the Securities Company was acquired and held in virtue of such combination; and enjoined the Securities Company and the two railway companies from receiving, or permitting the exercise of, any control by the Securities Company over either railway, or any exercise of the voting power of the railway shares, and the payment or reception of dividends upon the railway shares held by the Securities Company; and the Securities Company was forbidden from acquiring further stock of either of the railway companies.

And it was provided that nothing should be construed as prohibiting the Securities Company from returning and transferring the railway shares to the original railway stockholders who had delivered their shares to the Securities Company for shares of its stock; or to such person or persons as might be the holders and owners of its own stock originally issued in exchange or in payment for the stock claimed to have been acquired by it in the railway companies.

This did not involve a decision that any original vendor of the railway shares was entitled to a judicial restitution thereof, and such was the view of the Circuit Court itself, for in its opinion of April 19, 1904, the court said:

"The decree was wholly prohibitory. It enjoined the doing of certain threatened acts, and so long as these acts are not done it enforces itself, and no further action looking to its enforcement is deemed essential.

"In its bill of complaint the United States prayed, among other things, for a mandatory injunction against the Securities Company requiring it to recall and cancel the certificates of stock which it had issued, and to surrender the stock of the two railway companies in exchange for which its stock had been issued. This prayer for relief was denied. The court doubted its power to compel stockholders of the Securities Company, who had not been served with process, and were not before the court otherwise than by representation (if, indeed, they were present by representation), to surrender stock which was in their possession, and to take other stock in lieu thereof. It accordingly contented itself with an order which rendered the stock of the two railway companies, so long as it was in the hands of the Securities Company, valueless for the purpose of carrying out the objects of the unlawful combination in restraint of interstate trade.

"The Government was satisfied with the relief obtained, and expresses itself as fully satisfied therewith at the present time. When the decree was entered it was assumed by the court that when the stock was thus rendered valueless in the hands of the Securities Company the stockholders of that company would be able, and likewise disposed, to make a disposition of the stock which, under all the circumstances of the case, would be fair and just, and would restore it to the markets of the world, where it would have some value, instead of being a worthless commodity. It was thought that the duty of thus disposing of it could be safely left to the stockholders of the Securities Company, and that, if any controversy arose in the discharge of this function, in view of the situation that had been created by the decree, it would be a controversy that would properly form the subject matter of an independent suit between the parties immediately interested.

"It is true that the decree contained a provision, in substance, that nothing therein contained should be construed as prohibiting the Securities Company from returning to the stockholders of the Northern Pacific Railway Company and the Great Northern Railway Company any and all shares of stock in either of said railway companies which the Northern Securities Company had acquired in exchange for its own stock, and that nothing therein contained should be construed as prohibiting the Securities Company from making such transfer of the stock aforesaid to such person or persons as had become owners of its own stock originally issued in exchange for the stock in the two railway companies; but this provision was purely permissive. It did not command that the stock should be so returned, or exclude other methods of disposition of it that, in view of all the circumstances, might appear to be more equitable. The fact that the directors of the Securities Company have proposed to its stockholders a plan of distributing the stock of the two railway companies in a manner somewhat different from that which was tentatively suggested by the decree, but not commanded, cannot be regarded as a failure to obey the decree. It was said in argument that one purpose of the intervention is to have that clause of the decree which is now merely permissive made mandatory. But this would be to modify the provisions of a decree which had become final by affirmance, and make an order which we expressly and on full consideration declined to make when the decree was entered. This we must decline to do."

The decree of April 9, 1903, was affirmed by the judgment of this court, which, of course, went no further than the decree itself. We did, indeed, by our judgment leave the Circuit Court at liberty "to proceed in the execution of its decree as the circumstances may require," but this did not operate to change the decree or import a power to do so not otherwise possessed.

Counsel argue, however, that certain expressions in the opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan so enlarged the scope of the decree as to give it the effect now attributed to it by complainants.

This suggestion is inconsistent with the settled rule that general expressions in an opinion, which are not essential to dispose of a case, are not permitted to control the judgment in subsequent suits. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 399; Caroll v. Caroll's Lessees, 16 How. 275. But we do not think that the opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan is open to the construction put upon it. In speaking of the situation as between the Government and the defendants, the Securities Company is sometimes referred to as the custodian of the shares and sometimes as the absolute owner, but in the sense that in either view the combination was illegal. For the purposes of that suit it was enough that in any capacity the Securities Company had the power to vote the railway shares and to receive the dividends thereon. The objection was that the exercise of its powers, whether those of owner or of trustee, would tend to prevent competition, and thus to restrain commerce.

Some of our number thought that as the Securities Company owned the stock the relief sought could not be granted, but the conclusion was that the possession of the power, which, if exercised, would prevent competition, brought the case within the statute, no matter what the tenure of title was.

Treating the question as an open one, it seems to us indisputable that, as between these parties, the transaction was one of purchase and sale. The situation is thus well put by Dallas, J.:

"The resolution which authorized the acquisition of the railway stock on behalf of the Securities Company was adopted by its board of directors at a meeting at which Mr. Harriman was present as a member of the board, and the only authority it conferred was `to purchase said stock . . . at an aggregate price of $91,407,500, payable, as to $82,491,871 thereof, in the fully paid-up and non-assessable shares of the capital stock of this company at par, and as to $8,915,629, in cash.' It is obvious that this resolution contemplated a `purchase,' and not a bailment or trust; and that it accurately stated the nature and terms of the contract which was actually made by and with the Securities Company is unequivocally shown by what was done in pursuance of it. The railway shares were unconditionally assigned to that company. The price specified in the resolution was paid by it, and this payment was made partly in cash and partly in shares of its own stock, for which corporate certificates in the ordinary form were delivered and accepted. . . . The complainants received dividends upon the stock that was issued to them, which were paid out of the general funds of the Securities Company; and by its indenture to the Equitable Trust Company of New York the Oregon Short Line Railroad Company irrefutably asserted its ownership of the Securities Company stock which it thereby pledged."

And the Securities Company sold 75,000 shares of its stock for $7,522,000 cash, "used," as stated in the bill, "for the purchase of other property and for corporate purposes."

But assuming that the transaction was in form, and at least prima facie in substance, one of purchase and sale, it is denied that the equitable title vested because, as alleged in the second amended bill, there was an agreement by the promoters of the Securities Company, carried out by that company, that the latter should "acquire and hold the shares of said railway stocks, as aforesaid, as custodian, depositary, or trustee, and to issue in exchange therefor its own share certificates upon said agreed basis." And here again we concur in the views of the Circuit Court of Appeals as expressed by Judge Dallas.

"The agreement thus set up is not in accord with the documentary evidence which has been referred to, and to establish its existence a clear preponderance of proof should at least be required, whereas, in our opinion, it conclusively appears that no such agreement was ever made. Mr. Harriman himself has distinctly testified that the Northern Pacific stock in question was sold; that the transaction was not an exchange; that he, principally, negotiated the sale; and that there was not attached to the negotiations any condition except as to price. And to the same effect is his affidavit in this case, in which he deposed that he was urged by Messrs. Morgan & Co. to dispose of the Northern Pacific stock held by the Oregon Short Line Company, and that `they further stated that, upon the organization of the proposed holding company,' not that it would take as custodian or trustee, but that `they would be prepared to purchase the holdings of stock of the Northern Pacific owned by the Oregon Short Line, and pay therefor in the stock of the holding company.' These statements of that one of the complainants having most knowledge of the subject, confirmed, as they are, by other evidence, make it quite impossible to believe that the railway stock was received by the Securities Company merely as a custodian or depositary. The only agreement upon which it was transferred was an unqualified agreement of sale, and the fact that the design with which the Securities Company was organized has been compulsorily abandoned has not divested or in any way affected the absolute title which, by executed contract of purchase, it acquired. Undoubtedly, it was anticipated by the complainants, as by all concerned, that the rights ordinarily incident to the ownership of stock, including the right to vote and to receive dividends, would be exercisable as to this stock by the Securities Company. But expectation is not contract, and therefore the frustration of this anticipation cannot be said to have occasioned a failure of consideration. The only consideration agreed upon was payment of the price, and admittedly that payment was made."

Complainants' counsel say, in respect of Mr. Harriman's testimony that the transaction was an unconditional purchase and sale, that he only swore to his opinion on a question of law. This will hardly do when applied to testimony as to what was said and done in conference with the alleged promoters of the Securities Company. When Mr. Harriman testified that he attached to his negotiations in the sale of Northern Pacific stock no other condition than that of the price, and that the transaction was completed, how can complainants be permitted to deny that this was a statement of fact? And how can the establishment of the contract and its terms as embodied in the resolutions of November 15, 1901, approved at the succeeding meeting by the vote of Mr. Harriman, and which appeared to be, and were testified to by Mr. Hill, President of the Securities Company, as constituting the only contract which was made and authorized, be overthrown in the absence of any evidence to the contrary?

The consideration received by complainants consisted of money and Northern Securities stock certificates. Those certificates were in common form, and each was a muniment of the holder's title to a proportionate interest in the corporate estate vested in the corporation. By the provisions of the corporation act of New Jersey, and its certificate of incorporation, the Securities Company had power to acquire and to hold, and at any time to sell, the shares of other corporations. And under that act it had power, in the discretion of its directors and of the holders of two-thirds of its capital stock, at any time, on notice, to dissolve and to wind up the corporation and distribute its assets. Complainants subjected themselves to this power in accepting the shares of the Northern Securities Company, and their unqualified transfer of their railway stock was inconsistent with any obligation of the Securities Company to retain the railway shares for any particular period.

In acquiring the Securities stock, complainants acquired the ordinary rights of stockholders in New Jersey business corporations, including the right to receive dividends, and to share in the distribution of the assets of the corporation on its dissolution, or of any surplus of assets on reduction of its capital stock. In view of the decree of the Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota in the Government's suit the continued ownership of the railway shares became useless to the stockholders of the Securities Company, and accordingly the directors decided to reduce the capital stock and distribute the surplus of assets created by that reduction, and the resolutions to that end were ratified by a vote of more than two-thirds of the Securities shares.

By the transfer of the Northern Pacific shares and the payment therefor as agreed the contract was executed, and the implied obligations resulting from the relation of corporation and stockholder alone remained executory. And when the Securities Company resolved to distribute these railway shares ratably among all its stockholders, it did this in performance of its contract with them and not in repudiation of it. It is the complainants who are seeking the determination and repudiation of the contract. Their final contention in that regard is that they are entitled to a decree rescinding the contract of purchase and sale, and directing the return of the railway shares parted with by them thereunder, because of the illegality of the transaction as adjudged in the Federal courts.

And this in defiance of the settled rule that property delivered under an illegal contract cannot be recovered back by any party in pari delicto. "The general rule, in equity, as at law," said Mr. Justice Gray in St. Louis, Vandalia & Terre Haute Railroad Company v. Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad Company, 145 U.S. 393, "is In pari delicto potior est conditio defendentis; and therefore neither party to an illegal contract will be aided by the court, whether to enforce it or to set it aside. If the contract is illegal, affirmative relief against it will not be granted, at law or in equity, unless the contract remains executory, or unless the parties are considered not in equal fault, as where the law violated is intended for the coercion of the one party, and the protection of the other, or where there has been fraud or oppression on the part of the defendant. Thomas v. Richmond, 12 Wall. 349, 355; Spring Co. v. Knowlton, 103 U.S. 49; Story Eq. Jur. § 298. . . .

"When the parties are in pari delicto, and the contract has been fully executed on the part of the plaintiff, by the conveyance of property, or by the payment of money, and has not been repudiated by the defendant, it is now equally well settled that neither a court of law nor a court of equity will assist the plaintiff to recover back the property conveyed or money paid under the contract. Thomas v. Richmond, supra; Ayerst v. Jenkins, L.R. 16 Eq. 275, 284."

That was a suit in equity by the maker of an unauthorized lease of a railway and franchises, against the lessee, to enforce an attempted repudiation of the lease by the former, on the ground of the illegality. The lease was for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, of which but a few years had elapsed at the date of the attempted rescission.

The illegality of the lease and the consequent breach of public duty were manifest, but the right of the lessor, therefore, to maintain the suit was denied by this court.

In the present case complainants seek the return of property delivered to the Securities Company pursuant to an executed contract of sale on the ground of the illegality of that contract, but the record discloses no special considerations of equity, justice or public policy, which would justify the courts in relaxing the rigor of the rule which bars a recovery.

The Circuit Court decrees put at rest any question that the ratable distribution resolved upon was in violation of public policy.

And it is clear enough that the delivery to complainants of a majority of the total Northern Pacific stock and a ratable distribution of the remaining assets to the other Securities stockholders would not only be in itself inequitable, but would directly contravene the object of the Sherman Law and the purposes of the Government suit.

The Northern Pacific system, taken in connection with the Burlington system, is competitive with the Union Pacific system, and it seems obvious to us, the entire record considered, that the decree sought by complainants would tend to smother that competition.

While the superior equities, as against complainants' present claim, of the many holders of Securities shares who purchased in reliance on the belief that they thereby acquired a ratable interest in all of the assets of the Securities Company, are too plain to be ignored.

The illegal contract could not be made legal by estoppel, but the ownership of the assets, unaffected by a special interest in complainants, could be placed beyond dispute on their part by their conduct in holding the Securities Company out to the world as unconditional owner.

And, without repeating in detail what has been already set out, it is plain that right of rescission of the executed contract of November 18, 1901, even if rescission could have otherwise been sustained, had been lost by acquiescence and laches at the time this bill was filed.

Since the transfer of that date Securities stock had passed into the hands of more than 2,500 holders, many of them in Great Britain, France and other parts of Europe; nearly a year after the filing of the Government bill 75,000 shares were sold for cash, complainant Harriman concurring; some months after, Harriman and Pierce and the Oregon Short Line Company pledged their 824,000 shares to the Equitable Trust Company; notwithstanding the decree of April 9, 1903, they stood upon their rights as shareholders; and it was not until after March 22, 1904, when defendant's board of directors resolved upon a ratable distribution that complainants undertook to change an election already so pronounced as to be irrevocable in itself in view of the rights of others.

We regard the contention that complainants are exempt from the doctrine in pari delicto because the parties acted in good faith and without intention to violate the law as without merit. With knowledge of the facts and of the statute, the parties turned out to be mistaken in supposing that the statute would not be held applicable to the facts. Neither can plead ignorance of the law as against the other, and defendant secured no unfair advantage in retaining the consideration voluntarily delivered for the price agreed.

Perhaps it should be noticed that the bill sought the return of two parcels of Northern Pacific common stock, the 370,230 shares delivered to the Securities Company, November 18, 1901, and the 347,090 shares received December 27, 1901, from the Northern Pacific Company on the retirement of preferred stock.

Early in 1901 the Hill-Morgan party held a majority of the common stock, and had asserted the intention to retire the preferred stock, "without," as Mr. Harriman testified, "affording the holders of the preferred stock the right to participate in any new securities that might be issued."

With full knowledge of that intention the proceedings of the two companies followed in November, 1901, and the absolute and unconditional sale and purchase, as we hold the transaction to have been.

We find no evidence of any express agreement that complainants should be entitled to the new common stock, and it was certainly not the natural increase of the old stock, but the result of the exercise of the right of subscription. The purchase by the Securities Company was on its own account and not in trust, and cannot be disturbed because of illegal purpose at the clamor of parties in pari delicto. And there is here no offer of the restoration of the status quo, if that were practicable.

Doubtless it became the duty of the Securities Company to end a situation that had been adjudged unlawful, and this could be effected by sale and distribution in cash, or by distribution in kind, and the latter method was adopted, and wisely adopted, as we think, for the forced sale of several hundred millions of stock would have manifestly involved disastrous results.

In fine, the title to these stocks having intentionally been passed, the former owners or part of them cannot reclaim the specific shares and must be content with their ratable proportion of the corporate assets.

Decree affirmed; cause remanded to Circuit Court with a direction to dismiss the bill.