ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois.
This action was brought by the AEtna Life Insurance Company, a corporation of the State of Connecticut, against the town of Brooklyn, in the State of Illinois, upon certain interest coupons detached from bonds issued in the name of that town. Besides the general issue, the defendant filed four special pleas.
The second plea, in substance, avers that the coupons in suit and the bonds to which they were attached were issued and delivered by the supervisor and town clerk of the town for stock claimed to have been subscribed to the Chicago and Rock River Railroad Company, an Illinois corporation, organized under an act approved March 24, 1869, and thereby authorized and empowered to locate, construct, and complete a railroad from a point on the south side of Rock River, near Sterling, via Amboy, crossing the Chicago and Burlington Railroad, thence to intersect the Chicago branch of the Illinois Central Railroad, outside of the corporation at Chicago; that the company, in order to induce the town to subscribe to its capital stock, pretended, by its officers and agents, to lay out the line of railroad through the town and near the village of Maluguis Grove, thence to its terminus on the Chicago branch of the Illinois Central Railroad, and gave out that it was about to construct and complete its road, and thereby establish a through line to Chicago, wholly independent of and a competing line with the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, which passes a few miles south of Brooklyn; that on 20th September, 1869, an election was held to determine whether the town should subscribe $50,000 to the stock of the company; that the notices for the election expressly stated that no bonds in payment of any subscription should be issued, draw interest, or be delivered to the company, until the railroad was completed and cars running through Brooklyn; that a majority of the voters at such election voted to make the subscription; that on 23d May, 1870, William Holdren, the acting supervisor of the town, signed and executed as such a certain paper, purporting to subscribe $50,000 in the name of the town to the capital stock of the company, which subscription provided that it was made upon the express understanding set forth in the notices of election, and that no payment was to be made until the road was completed and the cars running through the town; that the supervisor of the town had no authority or power to issue any bonds or coupons to the company until the road should be completed, which has never been done; that just before the issuing of the bonds and coupons it was rumored in the town that the railroad was about to be transferred to the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad Company, and was not to be built and completed as required by the notices of election and the terms of subscription; that thereupon the agents and representatives of the Chicago and Rock River Railroad Company were notified that if the road was not to be built and completed as promised, the bonds and coupons would not be issued and delivered; whereupon said agents and representatives informed the town and the citizens thereof that the company intended to complete the railroad as promised, and as fast as men and money could do so; that thereupon the supervisor and town clerk, raying upon such representations, but having no power or authority so to do, did, on or about Nov. 7, 1872, sign, issue, and deliver, in the name of the town, to the agents and representatives of the company, bonds to the aggregate amount of $50,000, with coupons attached, part of which are those sued on; that as soon as the bonds and coupons were received by the company it utterly ceased and refused to prosecute the construction of the road, and abandoned the entire work, whereby the town failed to obtain any railroad to Chicago, or a competing road with that of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad; that the representations aforesaid of the company's agents were knowingly false and fraudulent, but their falsity was unknown to the town, its supervisor, and clerk when the bonds were issued and delivered, and the issuing and delivery were procured by such false and fraudulent representations; that the bonds and coupons are wholly void and in no wise obligatory upon the town, because the company had not at the time they were issued complied with the conditions prescribed by the election notices and the subscription; that the town claims no interest in the stock of the company, which is worthless, and has been ever since the work was abandoned, and has received no value whatever for the bonds and coupons.