173 Mass. 249 | Mass. | 1899
These are actions for the injury which was the cause of action in Archambeau v. New York & New England Railroad, 170 Mass. 272, but the present actions are brought against the receivers who were operating the road on August 30, 1895, the time of the alleged tort. On August 31, 1895, the receivers turned over the property in their hands to the New England Railroad Company, and on December 18,1895, by a decree of the United States Circuit Court, their transfer was ratified, and they were “ discharged from all liability with respect to any acts or omissions of them, or either of them, or of any of their agents, attorneys, or employees.” The proceeds of the sale of the railroad company were distributed by the same decree. At the trial of the present cases the judge ruled that the actions could not be maintained, and the plaintiffs excepted. They now contend that they have a right to prosecute the actions to judgment, in order to fix the amount due to them as a first step toward asserting a lien upon the property turned over to the railroad company, which they wish to claim under the above mentioned decree.
The strongest ground for the plaintiffs would be that a receiver is not a corporation sole, and that therefore his liability must be personal, even if he is entitled to indemnity out of the funds in his hands, according to the general principle applied to trustees, executors, and the like. But the decisions have gone very far in distinguishing between the receiver’s official and personal liability. The universal practice of the courts, bold as it may seem in its origin, appears to us to be too well established to be departed from, especially in a case like the present, where the receivers were appointed by a court of the United States, and where the defendants were guilty of no act or omission which would have been a cause of action apart from their official relation to one of- the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs themselves do not contend that they could take but execution against the defendants. There is nothing in the hands of the defendants as receivers against which an execution could run. And in the case of receivers appointed as these were by a court of the United States, the language of the Supreme Court of the United States in discussing a part of the act
If the plaintiffs have any lien on the property in the hands of the railroad company, as to which we express no opinion, we do not perceive how their cases would be bettered by judgments against the receivers. In Texas & Pacific Railway v. Johnson, 151 U. S. 81, S. C. 76 Tex. 421, which was a proceeding to charge the company which had received the property from the receiver, the receiver was dropped from the proceedings before the case reached the Supreme Court of the United States. See also Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. v. Central Railroad of Iowa, and Davis v.
Exceptions overruled.