16 FEDERAL REPORTER.
2. BAME——hIUNICIPAL Bonus-Rrcirrs or Cnnnrrons or- RAILROAD Conroxurrou.
The charter of a city prohibits its councils from increasing its public debt
unless authorized by two-thirds of its qualified voters. A deed is executed by
. a railroad corporation securing bonds proposed to be issued, and the city guar-
antees to the bondholders the payment of the bonds, without being authorized
by a two-thirds vote, and afterwards, when the bonds mature, pays the bonds
and becomes the holder of them. In a subsequen-t litigation between the city
and other lien creditors of the railroad corporation, the court of highest resort
of the state in which the railroad lies and in which the railroad company is
chartered, decrees that the deed is a lien upon the railroad notwithstanding the
aforesaid inhibition in the city charter, In a still later litigation between lien
creditors of the railroad corporation in a federal court, that court held that the
decision of the state appellate court on this point was one that it was proper
to follow, and, moreover, that although the city might have contested her lia-
bility to pay the bonds, yet that subsequent lienholders were in no condition
to make such a contest, the debt being due, the lien being valid, and it being
immaterial to them who gets the amount due.
3. SAME—JU1<ISD[CTION—ASBIGNMENT or Junoivmrrrs IN STATE UOURT——UITl'ZEN·
sI—II1¤ or PA1vr11:s—SArIsrAeTIoN on JUDGMENTS.
Four state court judgments against a railroad corporation are assigned to
Hay, a non-resident of the state. The plaintiifs in two of them are non-resi-
dents, and those in the two others are residents. These four judgments, after
being assigned to Hay, are by him marked satisfied, for a consideration which
turns out to bc null and void. An equity suit is brought by Hay in the federal
court of that state to set aside the sazisfaetions and restore the liens of the orig-
inal judgments and decree was entered according to the prayer of the bill. In
a subsequent creditors suit to settle liens and priorities, it was contended that
this decree was defective for want of jurisdiction in the federal court to enter-
tain the suit as to the two judgments that had been recovered by residents, the
second clause of section first of the judiciary act of 1875 denying jurisdiction
of the suit of an assignee of a chose in action, where the assignor could not
sue, held, that the satisfoaoions were marked on the judgments by Hay, on an
implied undertaking of the railroad company to make the judgments good if
the consideration of marking them satisfied was null and void; that this obli-
gation was to Hay himself and was the real cause of action in the equity suit,
and therefore that the second clause of the act of 1875 did not apply. More-
over, that in any event the controversies represented by the two judgments be-
tween citizens of different states gave jurisdiction of the suit in equity which
comprehended the four judgments, and the federal court had a right to decree
as to all four judgments,uuless it had been shown that the judgments had been
assigned for the purpose of creating jurisdiction as prohibited by section 5 of
the act of 1875.
4. SAME——S'1‘ATE Srivrrrrm KEEPING Joooismnrs ALrvE-—MEIzoER.
The statute law of Virginia provides that judgments may be kept alive in
— the following manner: Execution may be issued within a year and sozrefacias
. or action may be brought within 10 years; and where execution issues within
the year, other execution may issue, or sci·refae.·‘as or action be brought within
10 years from the return-day where there is no return, or within 20 years from
the return of an execution where there is a return. Accordingly, on judgments
obtained in 1660, on which execution had been issued and returned within a
year, actions were brought in 1875 and new judgment s obtained, and it was con-
tended that the old judgments were merged in the new; that the liens of the
old were lost, and that the liens of the new dated only from the dates of the
. new judgments, and took priority only as of the later dates. But the court
held that whatever may be the law as to merger in other jurisdictions, yet if
the methods prescribed bythe statute law of a state for preserving judgments
. and their liens are pursued, the doctrines of merger must not be applied in that ,
, state in such manner as to defeat the purpose of the law and to destroy priori-
. ties expressly intended to be preserved.
In Equity. , -
The Alexandria & Washington Railroad Company extends from
Alexandria to the south end of Long bridge, OPPOSIIB Washington