Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/544

 530 FEDERAL REFOBTEB. �"That said respondents, prior to January 1, 1874, made out and rendered to sald railway company statements of the amount of work done by them and claimed to be paid therefor, and certain estimates were made by the engineer of said railway eompany for the sums so claimed, under the beliei and sup- position that said statements made by them were true and correct. �" That prior to the flrst of January, as aforesaid, said railway eompany had paid to said respondents large sums of money on account of said work, and they held a large amount of said estimates, so called, for work done, as claimed by them, which were not paid. �"That In December, 1873, said respondents brought suit in the circuit court of Appanoose county, lowa, upon these estimates, claiming that there was yet the amount thereof due to them for grading done on said railroad, and such proceedings were had in the premises that a judgment and decree was rendered in their favor against said railway eompany on the ninth day of January, 1874, for the sum of $39,763.24, besides costs; but your orators were not parties thereto; but your orators charge that said estimates were issued and said judgments obtained upon the belief that said respondents had done the work claimed by them, and that, in rendering their accounts, they had acted in good faith, and that their representations of the amount of work done were true and correct. �" That it was subsequent to the obtaining of this judgment that your ora- tors commenced proceedings in this court to foreclose said mortgages, and in that proceeding said respondents were made* parties to the bill, and appeared and flled their cross-bill, setting up said judgment and decree rendered in the circut court of Appanoose county, Your orators beg to refer to said proceed- ing in said cause in this court as part of this bill, and, without setting the same out in hœn verba, to show what was done therein. �"That during the pendency of said suit, and before decree therein, the par- ties, by counsel, entered into an agreed statenient of the facts, whereby it was admitted that said respondents' claim was correct, as shown by the judgment in Appanoose county, but sueh agreement was made under ihe belief and upon the representations that said judgment in Appanoose county was prop- erly obtained upon a true state of the facts, and without any knowledge that said claim was not correct, or that the work upun which it was based had not been done. �"Such other proceedings were had in said cause in this court that on the eighth day of June, 1877, a decree was entered awarding to said respondents the amount of said judgment in Appanoose county, lowa, and ordering that the same be a lien on the property of said railway eompany paramount and superior to that of the mortgage to your orators hereinbefore mentioned. �" That your orators and their counsel were wholly ignorant of what state of facts was proved in Appanoose county, or upon what representations or daim said decree was rendered, or whether the claim upon which it was based was correct or not ; and your orators had no reason to know, and had no real knowledge, of the incorrectness of the same until withih a few weeks last past. But so it is ; and your orators now charge upon information and belief that the claim made by the respondents iii said Appanoose county, and upon which said judgment and decree was rendered, was vvholly friiudulent and ��� �