Opinion of the Court. to pay at all until some authorized demand in behalf of creditors was made for payment. The defendant owed the creditors nothing, and he owed the company nothing save such unpaid portion of his stock as might be necessary to satisfy the claims of the creditors. Upon the bankruptcy of the company, his obligation was to pay to the assignees, upon demand, such an amount upon his unpaid stock as would be sufficient, with the other assets of the company, to pay its debts. He was under no obligation to pay any more, and he was under no obligation to pay anything until the amount necessary for him to pay was at least approximately ascertained. Until then his obligation to pay did not become complete.' And it was held, 'that when stock is subscribed to be paid upon call of the company, and the company refuses or neglects to make the call, a court of equity may itself make the call, if the interests of the creditors require it. The court will do what it is the duty of the company to do. But under such circumstances, before there is any obligation upon the stockholder to pay without an assessment and call by the company, there must be some order of a court of competent jurisdiction, or, at the very least, some authorized demand upon him for payment; and it is clear the statute of limitations does not begin to run in his favor until such order or demand.' Constituting, as unpaid subscriptions do, a fund for the payment of corporate debts, when a creditor has exhausted his legal remedies. against the corporation which fails to make an assessment, he may, by bill in equity or other appropriate means, subject such subscriptions to the satisfaction of his judgment, and the stockholder cannot then object that no call has been made. As between creditor and stockholder, 'it would seem to be singular if the stockholders could protect themselves from paying what they owe by setting up the default of their own agents.' Hatch v. Dana, 101 U. S. 205, 214. The condition that a call shall be made is, under such circumstances, as Mr. Justice Bradley remarks in the matter of Glen Iron Works, 20 Fed. Rep. 674, 681, 'but a spider's web, which the first breath of the law blows away.' And as between the stockholder and the corporation, it does not lie in the mouth of the stockholder Opinion of the Court. to say, in response to the attempt to collect his subscription, for the payment of creditors, that the claim is barred because the company did not discharge its corporate duty in respect to its creditors earlier. County of Morgan v. Allen, 103 U. S. 498. These considerations dispose of the alleged error in not sustaining the defence of the statutory bar." We regard these rulings in Hawkins v. Glenn as disposing of the points urged by the defendant as to the statutes of limitation of Missouri, and as to the want of jurisdiction in the Chancery Court of the city of Richmond to make the call. Under the statute of Missouri applicable to the present case, if an action was commenced within the statutory limitation of time, and the plaintiff suffered a non-suit, he was allowed to commence a new action within one year after the non-suit was suffered. The shortest period of limitation insisted on in the present case, under the statute of Missouri, is five years. The first call was made by the decree of December 14, 1880. The first suit was brought in 1884. The plaintiff suffered a nonsuit on the 15th of July, 1885. He brought the present suit on the 12th of July, 1886. The statute of Missouri, so far as it applies to the present case, was, therefore, complied with. The point is taken by the defendant that, under the statute of Virginia, the balance remaining unpaid on subscriptions to the stock was payable as called for or required by the president and directors of the company; that it appears by the amended petition that the contract between the company and the subscribers was, that the $80 per share was payable "only in such amounts and at such times as the same might be required to be paid by said company, through its presi dent and board of directors;" and that it is not averred in the amended petition that either the president or any of the directors was a party to the suit in the Chancery Court of the city of Richmond. But the president and directors stand for the corporation, and it is alleged in the amended petition that the corporation was a party to the amended bill, and that it was duly served with process in the cause, in accordance with the laws and Opinion of the Court. practice of the State of Virginia. The corporation sufficiently represented the president and directors in their official capacity, in which alone they were to act in making a call, and it also, as held in Hawkins v. Glenn, sufficiently represented the defendant. The rights of the parties in the present case must be adjudicated according to the requirements of the statutes and jurisprudence of Virginia, which State created the corporation, and in reference to whose laws the contracts of the subscribers to stock were made. The legislation of Missouri, which is invoked to the effect that, for the purposes of the statute of limitations of that State, the liability of a stockholder in a corporation to a creditor becomes fixed by the insolvency and dissolution of the corporation, and then becomes a primary and unconditional obligation, and the statute commences to run at once, can have no application to the present case. 'Nor can the adjudication of a court of Virginia, in a suit properly brought, and where it had jurisdiction as to subject matter and parties, be reviewed or impeached in a collateral suit like the present, except for actual fraud. The further point is urged by the defendant, in regard to the decree of March 26, 1886, and the call. for 50 per cent made thereby, that the Circuit Court of the county of Henrico was without jurisdiction to make a valid decree, and that such call or assessment was void. The view urged is, that the decree of December 14, 1880, was a final decree, without any reservation of any right to ask for a further call or assessment; and that the transfer of the cause to the Circuit Court of Henrico County was unauthorized. But we see nothing in the terms of the decree of December 14, 1880, to exclude the authority of the same court, or of any court to which the cause should be properly transferred, to make the further assessment of $50 per share; and the allegation in the amended petition as to the transfer of the suit is, that the Circuit Court of the county of Henrico was "a court of competent jurisdiction." This means that it was a court of competent jurisdiction to accept the transfer and to take jurisdiction of the suit. Opinion of the Court. In the case against the Taussigs, Charles Taussig died after the writ of error was taken, and the suit was ordered by this court to proceed against John J. Taussig and George W. Taussig, executors of Charles Taussig, deceased, and Morris Taussig, as defendants in error. The claim against the Taussigs is on 100 shares of stock, and the amended complaint in the suit against them is like that in the suit against Liggett. The facts and the principles of law involved are the same as in the case against Liggett, the only differences being immaterial ones, namely, that the writ of error in the Taussig case was filed in the Circuit Court on the 14th of December, 1886, and the citation was dated and filed on the 14th of December, 1886; that the defendants state, as grounds of demurrer, only that the causes of action accrued more than five years and more than ten years prior to the commencement of the suit and to the time when the nonsuit mentioned in the amended petition was suffered by the plaintiff; and, as a further ground of demurrer, that the assessment of 30 per cent on the stock of the company, made by the Chancery Court of the city of Richmond, and the subsequent assessment of 50 per cent, made by the Circuit Court of Henrico County, were void and of no force or effect as against the defendants, because those courts acquired no jurisdiction over the defendants, or any jurisdiction to make any assessment which should furnish any right of action to the plaintiff against the stockholders of the company. The judgment in each case is reversed, and each case is remanded to the Circuit Court, with a direction to overrule the demurrer to the amended petition, and to take such further proceedings as shall not be inconsistent with this opinion. MR. JUSTICE BREWER dissented. Opinion of the Court. UNITED STATES v. VOORHEES. ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA. No. 282. Argued April 18, 1890. - - Decided May 19, 1890. An extra allowance to a contractor for carrying the mails, under the provisions of Rev. Stat. § 3961, for an increase of expedition in carrying them, is not invalidated by reason of the fact that, prior to its allowance, the contractor was voluntarily carrying them over the route, with the increased expedition, and at the contract rate of pay. United States v. Barlow, 132 U. S. 271, distinguished from this case. THE case is stated in the opinion. Mr. Assistant Attorney General Maury for the plaintiff in error. Mr. John L. Webster for defendant in error. MR. JUSTICE LAMAR delivered the opinion of the court. This was an action at law brought in the court below by the United States against Luke Voorhees, to recover the sum of $14,342.52, alleged to have been illegally paid him for carrying the mails. The amended petition, filed on the 13th of July, 1806, alleged substantially as follows: In the year 1878, a contract was entered into between the Postmaster General and the defendant, by the terms of which the latter agreed to carry the mails of the United States over route No. 35,040, from Fargo to Pembina, Dakota, and back, six times a week, on a schedule of 62 hours a trip, for the sum of $17,000 a year. On the 30th of July, 1878, by reason of certain requests and a petition obtained by the defendant and his agents and employés acting for him, representing that the business interests of the country along the route demanded the expediting of the schedule time to 40 hours, which were forwarded to the |