(DOWNLOAD) "Chittenden Et Al. v. Brewster Et Al." by United States Supreme Court * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Chittenden Et Al. v. Brewster Et Al.
- Author : United States Supreme Court
- Release Date : January 01, 1864
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 61 KB
Description
Mr. E. S. Smith for Chittenden et al., appellants: The law is settled, that courts of different but of co-ordinate jurisdiction, cannot interfere with each other, either in process, person, or property, to prevent the first jurisdiction, which attaches or takes cognizance of the subject-matter in dispute, from determining the case conclusively. Now the law of lis pendens we assume to be equally settled. We assume that filing a bill in a court of equity and service of process is notice to the world of all the rights claimed by the complainant as set up in his bill. It was thus decided so long ago as in decisions reported by Vernon,1 and it has been confirmed by many since. Consider the action of the parties to the proceeding in the State court. Soon after the service of process in this case, the parties appear in the State court, on the first day of February, 1858, and a bill is filed by somebody, charging the assignees with neglect of duty. The assignees receive service, submit to the charge, and in fact, though not in form, confess a decree. They deliver without resistance to Mitchell the property and effects, to be taken to himself, under the assignment. When the assignees did this, they knew the fact of the proceedings by the appellants in the Federal court, to set aside the assignment, and subject the property to the payment of other judgments. If property, situated as the estate in this case was, can, by a proceeding in another jurisdiction, after right and lien had attached, be taken absolutely from the court, then proceedings by judgment creditors in the Federal court, after exhausting their remedy at law, are valueless. It will be impossible for a man to suggest a case, where the debtor, with the aid of a friendly creditor, could not concoct a proceeding to defeat every action by judgment creditors in courts of equity. Before a receiver could be appointed and take possession of the effects, such a proceeding, as the record in this case shows, could defeat the justice of the court. Notice for an injunction can be postponed; time will elapse before a receiver can be appointed. Assignees refuse or neglect to deliver over, and before that is done, an order comes from another jurisdiction, requiring the assignees to deliver the effects to another, who is appointed ostensibly to carry out the trusts. This order the assignees comply with, and thereby arrest the proceedings, because the property could not be reached; leaving the creditor powerless and his debt lost. Such proceedings cannot be tolerated by courts of justice. The rights of parties should not be subjected to schemes which might defeat the ends of justice, nor should parties, who use a court of justice in such a manner as these defendants stand under suspicion of having used one of those of the State of Illinois, go unpunished.