Appellee, Neustadter Brothers, a California corporation, brought this action in a state court of California against appellant, Sun-Maid Raisin Growers Association, a Delaware corporation, to recover of appellant $5,000, with interest and costs. The action was, on petition of appellant, removed from the state court to the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California. There appellant answered. The answer contained no counterclaim. No reply was ordered and none was filed. Thus, with the filing of the answer, the pleadings were closed. 1 *Thereafter appellee moved for judgment on the pleadings. 2 The motion was granted and judgment was entered in appellee’s favor for the full amount claimed. From that judgment this appeal is prosecuted.

The complaint is in two counts. Count 1 alleges that appellant issued and delivered to appellee 25 debentures dated July 1, 1923, each in the sum of $100 (a total of $2,500), bearing interest at the rate of 5% per annum payable annually on the first day of July, the principal thereof being due and payable on July 1, 1938; that appellee, since the issuance and delivery of said debentures to it, has been and is now the owner and holder thereof; that a specimen copy of said debentures, marked “Exhibit A,” is annexed to and made part of the complaint; and that no part of the principal of said debentures, nor any part of the interest accruing thereon since July 1, 1929, has been paid. The answer, by failing to deny, admits these allegations. 3

Count 2 alleges that appellant issued and delivered to Greenebaum, Weil & Michels, a California corporation (hereafter called Greenebaum), five debentures dated July 1, 1923, each in the sum of $500 (a total of $2,500), bearing interest at the rate of 5% per annum payable annually on the first day of July, the principal thereof being due and payable on July 1, 1938; that a specimen copy of said debentures, marked “Exhibit B,” is annexed to and made part of the complaint; and that no part of the principal of said debentures, nor any part of the interest accruing thereon since July 1, 1929, has been paid. The answer, by failing to deny, admits these allegations.

Count 2 further alleges that on April 19, 1939, said last-mentioned debentures were by Greenebaum transferred to bearer and were thereupon delivered to appellee, and that appellee ever since has been and is now the owner and bearer of said debentures. The answer states that, as to these matters, appellant has no information or belief and, on that ground, denies these allegations. 4 On motion of appellee, this denial was stricken from the answer. Subsequently the parties stipulated that no point *128 would be made on the denial or on the order striking it, and none was made. Thus, in effect, appellant has conceded that the denial was properly stricken.

As an affirmative defense to both counts, the answer states that all the debentures therein mentioned were issued under and subject to the provisions of an indenture dated July 1, 1923, between appellant and Anglo-California Trust Company, as trustee, 5 and that, at and prior to the commencement of this action (June 22, 1939) and at the time the answer was filed, debentures similarly issued under said indenture were outstanding in the total principal sum of $182,400. A copy of the indenture is annexed to and made part of the answer. Sections 2, 3 and 4 of article 4 of the indenture read as follows:

Despite the admitted fact that the debentures here involved matured prior to the commencement of this action and were *129 not paid, appellant contends that an-action to enforce payment of the debentures could not be maintained by the holder thereof, but could only be maintained by the trustee. Thus appellant would have us disregard the proviso with which section 4 concludes and treat the initial clause thereof as controlling. This we decline to do. For the initial clause is explicitly limited and qualified by the proviso. Furthermore, when section 4 is read in connection with sections 2 and 3, it is clear that section 4 is dealing with two kinds of actions for the enforcement of debentures: (1) Actions brought prior to the maturity date — July 1,1938 — specified in the indentures and (2) actions brought after that date. The initial clause of section 4 applies to the first, the proviso to the second. Compare Bullowa v. Thermoid Co., 114 N. J.L. 205, 176 A. 596 ; Mermelstein v. Thermoid Co., 3 Cir., 85 F.2d 913 .

Appellant asserts that the District Court erred “in rendering and entering judgment for [appellee] alone * * * without limitation or restriction as to the rights of other debenture holders and other creditors,” and “in rendering and entering judgment for [appellee] without imposing any limitations as to its enforcement and relative priority as respects preferred stockholders and creditors, secured and unsecured, in the event of dissolution, bankruptcy or liquidation.” These errors, if such they were, are not shown to have prejudiced appellant.

Judgment affirmed.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, rule 7(a), 28 U.S.O.A. following section 723c.

Id., Rule 12(c).

Id-, Rule 8(d).

Id., Rule 8(b).

This appears also from Exhibits A and B annexed to the complaint.