Buckeye Coal & Ry. Co. v. Hocking Valley Ry. Co., 269 U.S. 42 (1925)

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Buckeye Coal & Railway Company v.

Hocking Valley Railway Company
No. 51

Argued October 15, 1925
Decided November 16, 1925
269 U.S. 42

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO

Syllabus

1. Where a decree of the district court dissolving a combination violative of the Anti-Trust Act retains jurisdiction for the purpose of making such further orders as may be necessary to execute the decree, a subsequent order finally approving a specific sale of property for that purpose exhausts the reserved jurisdiction insofar as that sale is concerned, and cannot be altered by that court upon the same facts and upon the application of private interests after expiration of the term at which such order was made. P. 47.

2. An order approving a sale of the stock of a coal company under a contract between the purchaser and a railroad company owning the stock necessarily approved also a stipulation in the contract saving from impairment an existing pledge of the coal company’s lands under the railroad’s mortgage and an obligation of the coal company under the mortgage to pay a royalty upon coal mined by it to the railroad’s mortgagee. P. 47.

3. Where a coal company, whose stock, owned by a railroad company, was sold with the approval of the district court in execution of a decree against the railroad, its mortgage trustee and others, dissolving a combination as violative of the Anti-Trust Act, afterwards, in the state court, sued the railroad and the trustee for the purpose of avoiding obligations claimed under the railroad’s mortgage, held that the decree of the state court denying relief was res judicata against the coal company insofar a its personal and private right to be relieved of such obligations was concerned. P. 48.

4. One who has no interest of his own entitling him to urge measure in execution of a decree dissolving a combination under the Anti-Trust Act has no locus standi to do so in the public interest, that being the function of the United States. P. 48.

5. A corporation which was not injured by such a combination, and not party to the original decree dissolving it, and which is controlled by a person who bought all it shares under an order of the court made in execution of the decree, has no standing to intervene for the purpose of ridding itself, and so, in effect, the purchaser, of it obligations to other parties which existed at the time of the sale and were recognized by the order which authorized the sale. P. 49.

Affirmed.

Appeal from an order of the district court dismissing the appellants’ petition in intervention seeking relief in a suit brought by the United States under the Anti-Trust Act and in which a decree had been entered for the dissolution of a combination of railway and coal companies. See 2-3 F. 295.