Opinion of the Court. mortgage to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Company, at whose instance the mortgage was foreclosed, and the relations of those trustees and the governing officers of the Rock Island Company to the debtor, the Southwestern Company, and the relations of the officers of both these companies to each other and to both of these companies, that there could be no just and rightful foreclosure as between these parties, and that the action of the trustees in the mortgage deed and of the Rock Island Company, as moved by its officers, in promoting the foreclosure, was a violation of the trust reposed in all these parties, for the breach of which the whole proceeding must be held void." By a statement in the brief of the counsel for the appellant, showing the shares of the stock and the stockholders of the Chicago and Southwestern Railway Company, as voted at the meetings of the stockholders from 1869 to 1876 inclusive, and a list of its officers and directors during the same period, the following appears: At the first meeting of the stockholders of the consolidated company, in 1869, there were present 10,396 shares, being those held in the original constituent companies. Of these shares, Leavenworth County voted 3000, the East Leavenworth Improvement Association 5000, four officers and directors of the Rock Island Company 10 each, and the remaining shares were held by various individuals in small amounts. Thirteen directors were elected at that meeting, of whom five were officers or directors of the Rock Island Railroad Company, one of such five being its general solicitor. No meeting of the stockholders was held in 1870. In 1871, at the stockholders' meeting, 67,500 shares were voted, of which 25,000 were voted by such general solicitor, and 25,000 by another person connected with the Rock Island Company. Of the directory of thirteen persons, nine were officers or directors of the Rock Island Company. Two of the five officers of the road, namely, the treasurer and transfer agent and the general solicitor, were connected with the Rock Island Company; and of the executive committee of five, three were officers of the latter company. Opinion of the Court. At the stockholders' meeting in 1872, 88,719 shares were voted, of which 60,933 were voted by persons connected with the Rock Island Company; and on the day after such meeting 68,247 shares of the stock of the Southwestern Company were transferred to the president of the Rock Island Company, who was also a director of the Southwestern Company. In 1872, nine out of the thirteen directors of the Southwestern Company, including the president and the treasurer, were representatives of the Rock Island Company, as were also three out of the five members of the executive committee. In 1873, 77,284 shares were voted, of which 68,250 were voted by persons connected with the Rock Island Company, all of the shares so voted, except 1505, being represented by the solicitor of the Rock Island Company. Of the board of directors of the Southwestern Company during 1872, nine of the thirteen were officers or directors or employés of the Rock Island Company. At the stockholders' meeting in 1874, 74,628 shares were voted, of which all except 504 were voted by representatives of the Rock Island Company. At the stockholders' meeting in 1875, 75,781 shares were voted, all of which were voted by representatives of the Rock Island Company. At the stockholders' meeting in 1876, 76,788 shares were voted, all but 505 of which were voted by the general solicitor of the Rock Island Company, as proxy. At the subsequent meetings of the stockholders, held down to 1880, 68,246 shares were voted in the interest of the Rock Island Company.. It does not appear by the records that there has been any meeting of the board of directors of the Southwestern Company, or any election of officers of the company other than directors, since 1876. This state of things is summed up thus in the opinion of the Circuit Court: "It must be admitted that the case made is a very strong one. One of the trustees of the mortgage deed was a director in the Rock Island Company; both the others were stockholders in it. The president of the Rock Island Company was president of the Southwestern Company. A Opinion of the Court. majority of the directors of the Southwestern Company were directors in the Rock Island Company. There was in the hands of the president of the Rock Island Company a majority of the stock of the Southwestern Company. The attorney who appeared and represented the Southwestern Company had been previously in the employ of the Rock Island Company, and the attorneys who brought the foreclosure suit in the name of the trustees were afterwards, in many matters, attorneys for the Rock Island Company, and one of the attorneys of the Rock Island Company in the foreclosure suit. was at the time a director in the Southwestern Company." On these facts the Circuit Court remarks as follows: "As regards the attorneys it can hardly be admitted as an impeachment of the attorney of the defendant, the Southwestern Company, that he had been or was afterwards an attorney of the Rock Island Company, nor will it be presumed that if he was even then in the employment of the Rock Island Company in other matters he did not or would not faithfully represent the Southwestern Company in this matter; and his character repels any such inference. Nor does the fact that the attorney of the Rock Island Company was a director in the Southwestern Company, though the interest of the two companies might conflict, preclude him from acting as attorney for the former company, and we see no reason why the men then and afterwards attorneys for the Rock Island Company should not represent the trustees in the mortgage as there was no conflict of interest between the trustees and the Rock Island Company. In reference to the relations of the officers of the two companies to those companies and to each other, it is quite apparent, from the consolidation of the Iowa and the Missouri companies on the 26th of September, 1869, and the contract between this consolidated company and the Rock Island on the 1st day of October, that the purpose of the Rock Island Company, or of those who had its control, was to secure and retain a paramount influence in the directory of the Chicago and Southwestern; and in point of fact it cannot be doubted that it did obtain and exercise at times such control. While it is not necessary to VOL. CXXXIV-45 Opinion of the Court. consider that the purpose of this contract was to injure the Southwestern Company, but in the view of all the parties it was to advance the interest of both companies, it is certainly true that the primary object in the minds of those controlling the Rock Island Company was to make the other road a subsidiary and feeding road to its own line. This purpose was not necessarily a bad one, and was or might have been consistent with the best interests of both companies. The Rock Island Company paid a valuable consideration for this control and the other company received it. It endorsed the bonds of the Southwestern Company to the amount of $5,000,000 and agreed to protect it against a foreclosure of the mortgage given to secure the payment of these bonds during the period of construction of the road. The burden of this obligation and its importance to the success of the undeveloped enterprises of the new company cannot be easily overrated. The road could not have been built without it. The money for the construction of the track and laying it with iron came almost exclusively from the sale of these bonds, and that the money was raised on them was due, not to the credit of the Southwestern Company or to the mortgage on a road barely begun, but to the endorsement of the Rock Island Company and the credit which that endorsement gave to the bonds. This credit and assumption of liability by the Rock Island Company enabled the Southwestern Company to build its road to completion. There was nothing, therefore, fraudulent or oppressive in that company's seeking to retain such control of the road as would enable it to realize the consideration for which it assumed this obligation of $5,000,000. Matters were in this condition when the road was completed, but the Southwestern Company had no means of equipping its road with rolling stock and meeting other necessary outlays. The Rock Island Company furnished this, and used the road under an arrangement for lease, never, perhaps, fully consummated. But at the end of two or three years, in which it kept an account of receipts and expenditures, it was found that the Southwestern Company was indebted over a million of dollars for repairs and construction of the road, and had defaulted in payment Opinion of the Court. of the interest on its bonds to an amount nearly equal, the coupons for which had been paid by the Rock Island Company as endorser, and were held by it. That company determined then to assert the right which its contract gave to have the mortgage foreclosed to satisfy the interest which it had paid on the bonds it had endorsed. Unless there was some injustice in the manner in which it had managed the road or kept its accounts, I see no defect in its right to insist on the foreclosure. If the Rock Island Company had a right to insist on this foreclosure, it was the duty of the trustees in the deed of trust to bring the suit for that purpose. I am unable to see anything in the fact that some of the same men were found to be trustees in this deed and directors in the Rock Island Company, and that directors in the Southwestern Company were also directors in the Rock Island Company, which should block the course of justice, paralyze the power of the court, and deprive the creditor corporation of all remedy for the enforcement of its lien. If it could be shown that the Southwestern Company did not owe this interest, or that the Rock Island Company had in its hands the means of the Southwestern Company to meet this obligation, and that by reason of collusion between those who controlled both companies this fact was suppressed or concealed, it would present a strong case for relief. But this would be actual fraud, and one not necessarily growing out of the influence of the Rock Island directory over that of the Southwestern. Notwithstanding this commingling of officers, the corporations were distinct corporations. They had a right to make contracts with each other in their corporate capacities, and they could sue and be sued by each other in regard to these contracts; and the question is not could they do these things, but have the relations of the parties — the trust relations, if indeed such existed-- been abused to the serious injury of the Southwestern Company. In regard to the legal right of the Rock Island Company to have the mortgage foreclosed in satisfaction of the sum paid by it for interest after the completion of the road, it seems to me there can be no reasonable doubt." The counsel for the appellant, in his brief, after urging the |