Keokuk & Western Railroad v. Missouri

Citations

• 152 U.S. 301
• 14 S. Ct. 592
• 38 L. Ed. 450
• 1894 U.S. LEXIS 2119

Syllabus

<p>A railroad corporation, chartered in Missouri in 1857,- with a provision that its property should be exempt from taxation for a period of twenty years after its completion, which toot place in 1872, was consolidated with an Iowa corporation in 1870., under a general law of Missouri, and in 1886 the consolidated road was sold'under a decree of foreclosure of a mortgage to purchasers who conveyed it to an Iowa corporation. Held, that the new organization held the Missouri road subject to the provision in the constitution of Missouri adopted in 1865, that “ no property, real or personal, shall be exempt from taxation, except such as may be used exclusively for public schools, and such as may belong to the United States, to this State, to counties, or to municipal corporations within this State.”</p> <p>The consolidation of the Missouri corporation, under the Missouri act of March 2, 1869, with an Iowa corporation, operated to extinguish the old company, and to form a new one as of the date of the consolidation, and the provisions concerning exemption from taxation in the old charter did not pass to the new company.</p> <p>A, mortgagee is not bound by judgments or decrees against the mortgagor in suits, begun by third parties subsequent to the mortgage, unless he or his representative is a party to the litigation.</p> <p>A suit for taxes for obe year is no bar to a suit for taxes for another year. In order to work an estoppel, the operation of it must be mutual.</p>