DOWNER v. DUNAWAY
No. 6286.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
Nov. 20, 1931.
Rehearing Denied Dec. 18, 1931.
It is true that paragraph 63 of this chapter provides that “the amendment [to the corporate charter] shall be effective from the date of filing by the Secretary of State,” but the word “effective” has application to the authority of the corporation. It could not apply to a creditor who had no knowledge of the change in name. Until such certificate was filed, a creditor taking a mortgage from the corporation to secure a loan presently advanced has a right to assume that the corporate name has not been changed. In the instant case, it is not contended that any unsecured creditor of bankrupt extended credit on the assumption that the bankrupt‘s property was free from lien. In fact, there is no proof that bankrupt incurred any indebtedness between the date of the execution of the mortgages and the date of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy.
No case has been cited to us, which, in point of facts, is even close to the one we are considering. It is the general rule, however, that when a party has notice of facts appearing in a recorded document, such as would put a prudent person upon inquiry, he is chargeable with the knowledge of such other facts, which, by diligent inquiry, he would have ascertained had he investigated. 23 Ruling Case Law 221, § 83.
The Supreme Court, in Northwestern Nat. Bank v. Freeman, 171 U. S. 620, 629, 19 S. Ct. 36, 39, 43 L. Ed. 307, states the rule thus: “A purchaser is charged with notice of every fact shown by the records, and is presumed to know every other fact which an examination suggested by the records would have disclosed.”
Other cases, holding constructive knowledge of facts which might have been discovered upon diligent search, are: Page v. Natural Gas & Fuel Co., 35 F.(2d) 462 (C. C. A.); Mathieson v. Craven, 228 F. 345 (D. C.); Peninsular Naval Stores Co. v. Tomlinson, 244 F. 598 (D. C.); Thorpe v. Helmer, 275 Ill. 86, 113 N. E. 954.
It could not be seriously urged that all changes in the name of the mortgagor corporation would, as against creditors, defeat a mortgage executed in good faith for a present valuable consideration. To illustrate: Had the Greer College of Motoring changed its name in one respect only, that is, by adding the letter “e” to the word Greer, it could not be seriously contended that a mortgage given by it thereby became unenforceable as against unsecured creditors.
A few of the cases illustrative of the extent to which the courts have gone in holding the world chargeable with notice of the existence of a lien evidenced by a recorded instrument, wherein the lienor‘s name is inaccurately stated, are herewith collected. Lembeck & Betz Eagle Co. v. Barbi, 90 N. J. Eq. 373, 106 A. 552; Muehlberger v. Schilling (Sup.) 3 N. Y. S. 705; Lena Loser v. Plainfield Savings Bank, 149 Iowa, 672, 128 N. W. 1101, 31 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1112; Huston v. Seeley, 27 Iowa, 183; Fallon v. Kehoe, 38 Cal. 44, 99 Am. Dec. 347; H. R. & C. Co. v. Eleanor M. Smith, 242 N. Y. 267, 151 N. E. 448, 45 A. L. R. 554; Woodward v. McCollum, 16 N. D. 42, 111 N. W. 623; American Emigrant Co. v. Call (C. C.) 22 F. 765; Fincher v. Hanegan, 59 Ark. 151, 26 S. W. 821, 24 L. R. A. 543.
Here it is shown that the mortgagor operated in the same vicinity for fifteen years; its creditors knew its business to be that of conducting a flying school, and that it used the more or less pretentious word “college.” The business was conducted by one Greer. Flying machines, of course, require motors. We cannot conceive of a creditor who dealt with the bankrupt under the new name of Greer College and Airways, under these circumstances, being deceived by a recorded mortgage running from the Greer College of Motoring.
Appellee argues in this court that the proof shows the mortgages to have been fraudulently given. This contention must be rejected by us in view of the facts as found by the District Court, heretofore quoted.
The decree is reversed, with instructions to enter one in harmony with the views herein expressed.
Harry S. Strozier, of Macon, Ga., and W. A. Sutherland, A. T. Walden, and Granger Hansell, all of Atlanta, Ga., for appellant.
T. R. Gress, of Atlanta, Ga., for appellee.
Before BRYAN, FOSTER, and WALKER, Circuit Judges.
BRYAN, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from an order denying a petition for the writ of habeas corpus. It is here upon a certificate of the district judge that in his opinion probable cause was shown for its allowance.
The leading cases in the Supreme Court on the question whether there is due process of law in the trial of a criminal case in the presence of or under the influence of actual or threatened mob violence are Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309, 35 S. Ct. 582, 586, 59 L. Ed. 969, and Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86, 43 S. Ct. 265, 266, 67 L. Ed. 543. In the first of these cases it is said that “a hearing, or an opportunity to be heard, before a court of competent jurisdiction, according to established modes of procedure, is ‘due process’ in the constitutional sense.” And again: “We, of course, agree that if a trial is in fact dominated by a mob, so that the jury is intimidated and the trial judge yields, and so that there is an actual interference with the course of justice, there is, in that court, a departure from due process of law in the proper sense of that term. And if the state, supplying no corrective process, carries into execution a judgment of death or imprisonment based upon a verdict thus produced by mob domination, the state deprives the accused of his life or liberty without due process of law.” And in Moore v. Dempsey, supra, it is said: “But if the case is that the whole proceeding is a mask—that counsel, jury and judge were swept to the fatal end by an irresistible wave of public passion, and that the State Courts failed to correct the wrong, neither perfection in the machinery for correction nor the possibility that the trial court and counsel saw no other way of avoiding an immediate outbreak of the mob can prevent this Court from securing to the petitioners their constitutional rights.” In Dunn v. Lyons, 23 F.(2d) 14, 15, this court, after considering the two cases above cited, held “that a writ of habeas corpus will not lie where the state supplies and its courts make available process adequate to correct errors committed during the trial of a case.” In Ashe v. United States, 270 U. S. 424, 46 S. Ct. 333, 334, 70 L. Ed. 662, it was held that the regular administration of the criminal law of a state can only be attacked collaterally in habeas corpus proceedings in “extraordinary cases where there is only the form of a court under the domination of a mob.”
The petition in this case follows closely the petition in the Moore v. Dempsey Case, and makes an equally good showing for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus. While there can be no doubt that the state of Georgia provides ample means for correcting the errors of a trial court, according to the petition the corrective process was not made available to appellant by the state trial court. Counsel who represented appellant may have construed their appointment as covering only the actual trial, such as impaneling the jury, examining and cross-examining the witnesses, and making arguments in the case; and not as including the making of motions for continuance, change of venue, and a new trial. If so, the construction they placed upon their appointment is too narrow to be countenanced, and cannot be attributed to appellant who had no choice in the selection of his counsel. It goes without saying that an accused who is unable by reason of poverty to employ counsel is entitled to be defended in all his rights as fully and to the same extent as is an accused who is able to employ his own counsel to represent him. The trial judge is given authority by law to change the venue of the trial of a criminal case of his own motion and without petition whenever in his judgment the accused is in danger of being lynched or violently dealt with in the county where the crime was committed.
A trial conducted as this one is alleged to have been cannot be other than void. But it is argued in behalf of appellee that appellant had not exhausted his remedy in the state courts, because it is said the way was open both before the filing of his petition and since to file an extraordinary motion for a new trial in the trial court, and upon denial of it to appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia. We are of opinion that appellant‘s rights must be determined as of the date of his petition, as in view of the fact that he would have been executed two days later he could not have applied to the trial court at a regular term, because none was to be held until after the date set for his execution, Georgia Laws 1929, page 1544, and he could not have based an appeal upon the incorrectness of the verdict in the absence of a motion for a new trial. Holsey v. Porter, 105 Ga. 837, 31 S. E. 784. It is provided by statute that all applications for a new trial, except in extraordinary cases, must be made during the term at which the trial was had.
But it is argued that appellant failed to exhaust his remedies in the state courts, because it is said that he could have made application to the trial court to call a special term for the purpose of considering a motion for new trial to be presented in term time. In support of this argument reliance is had on
We conclude that the writ applied for should have been issued, and that a hearing should promptly be had to determine whether the allegations of the petition are true or false. If those allegations are true, the sentence imposed upon appellant should be held for naught; if they are false, of course the writ should be discharged.
WALKER, Circuit Judge (dissenting).
It seems to me that the order appealed from was proper because the allegations of the petition for the writ of habeas corpus do not show that the appellant, before filing that petition, availed himself of process supplied by the law of Georgia for annulling a judgment of conviction brought about by conditions of mob violence prevailing throughout the trial, or that he had any sufficient excuse for failing first to apply to a state court for relief. The opinion in the case of Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86, 43 S. Ct. 265, 67 L. Ed. 543, shows that the court expressly assumed that the corrective process supplied by the state with reference to a judgment of conviction based upon a verdict produced by mob domination may be so adequate that interference by habeas corpus ought not to be allowed. It is not to be doubted that the state of Georgia supplied adequate corrective process for annulling a judgment based on a verdict brought about by mob pressure. “Georgia has adopted the familiar procedure of a motion for a new trial, followed by an appeal to its supreme court, not confined to the mere record of conviction, but going at large, and upon evidence adduced outside of that record, into the question whether the processes of justice have been interfered with in the trial court. Repeated instances are reported of verdicts and judgments set aside and new trials granted for disorder or mob violence interfering with the prisoner‘s right to a fair trial.” Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309, 335, 35 S. Ct. 582, 590, 59 L. Ed. 969. The law of Georgia permits in extraordinary cases a motion for new trial to be made after the expiration of the term at which the judgment was rendered, and authorizes judges of superior courts to hold special terms for the trial of criminals in any county of their circuits, at discretion. Michie‘s Georgia Code 1926, §§ 6089, 6090;
Nothing in the petition for the writ of habeas corpus indicates that the counsel who was appointed by the court to represent the appellant construed his appointment as covering only the actual trial, and as not including the making of motions for continuance, change of venue, and a new trial. Georgia cases above cited show that counsel so appointed to defend one accused of crime is under a duty to make a motion for a new
It appears from the opinion in the case of Moore v. Dempsey, supra, that the allegations of the petition for the writ of habeas corpus show that by reason of conditions of mob violence prevailing throughout the trial the verdict and judgment of conviction were absolute nullities, that the state courts, though duly appealed to for the correction of the wrong, failed to correct it, and that the reviewing tribunal, by way of answer to the objection that no fair trial could be had in the circumstances, stated that it could not say “that this must necessarily have been the case“; that eminent counsel was appointed to defend the petitioner, that the trial was had according to law, the jury correctly charged, and the testimony legally sufficient. Following recitals to the just stated effect the court stated its conclusion by saying: “We shall not say more concerning the corrective process afforded to the petitioners than that it does not seem to us sufficient to allow a Judge of the United States to escape the duty of examining the facts for himself when if true as alleged they make the trial absolutely void. We have confined the statement to facts admitted by the demurrer. We will not say that they cannot be met, but it appears to us unavoidable that the District Judge should find whether the facts alleged are true and whether they can be explained so far as to leave the state proceedings undisturbed.” The result of the court‘s action in that case was to make it the duty of a judge of the United States to examine the facts for himself when the allegations of the petition for the writ of habeas corpus show that petitioner‘s conviction of a capital crime was a nullity by reason of mob violence interfering with his right to a fair trial, and that the corrective process supplied by the state, as that process was construed and applied by the courts of the state duly appealed to by the petitioner for the correction of the wrong, were inadequate for the accomplishment of that result, though the alleged state of facts having the effect of nullifying the verdict and judgment of conviction were duly disclosed to those courts—in other words, to examine the facts for himself for the purpose of determining whether the corrective process supplied by the state, as that process was administered in that case, was or was not as inadequate as it appeared to be from the allegations of the petition for the writ of habeas corpus. A material difference between that case and the instant one is that in the former it appeared from the allegations of the petition that the petitioner unavailingly had applied to the courts of the state for the annulment of a conviction of a capital offense, which was duly disclosed to those
Powers possessed by Georgia judges and courts would have been exercised if, after the final adjournment of the term of court at which appellant was convicted, no motion for a new trial having been made at that term, the judge of that court had called a special term and during that term had acted on an extraordinary motion for a new trial, and if, on an appeal to the Supreme Court following a denial of that motion, that court had set aside the conviction. Without first invoking an exercise of those powers or showing a sufficient excuse for failing to do so, appellant was not entitled to apply to a federal judge or court for relief which was grantable by a state court. To recognize a right of the appellant to get relief in a federal court in such circumstances as are disclosed by his petition amounts to approving unnecessary meddling by federal judges or courts with the administration of criminal laws of a state by the courts of the state, which are vested with power to correct the wrong alleged, and well might be expected to have the effect of encouraging attempts to substitute federal habeas corpus proceedings for established corrective procedure available in state courts for vacating wrongful convictions of crime. The allegations of appellant‘s petition are consistent with this case being an instance of one appealing to a judge or court of the United States for protection from action of a state court claimed to have the effect of depriving him of life or liberty without due process of law when adequate protection of his right to have the benefit of due process of law may be obtained by resort to courts of the state.
PER CURIAM.
As neither of the judges who concurred in the judgment of the court in the above numbered and entitled cause is of opinion that the petition for rehearing should be granted, it is ordered that the said petition be, and the same hereby is, denied.
BRYAN
UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE
HOOPER v. FIRST EXCHANGE NAT. BANK OF CŒUR D‘ALENE et al.
No. 6481.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Nov. 9, 1931.
Rehearing Denied Dec. 7, 1931.
