Krippendorf v. Hyde

Decision Date28 January 1884
PartiesKRIPPENDORF v. HYDE and another
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

In September, 1882, two of the defendants, partners as Hyde & Bros., brought an action at law in the circuit court against Lewis C. Frey and Jacob C. Maag, partners as Frey & Maag, to recover an amount alleged to be due for goods and merchandise sold, and levied a writ of attachment issued therein on a stock of goods in the city of Indianapolis, as the property of Frey & Magg, which was in the possession of the appellant, and of which, at the time, as he alleges, he was owner. The property was appraised as required by the statutes of Indiana, and its value returned at the sum of $13,165.64. The goods were returned to the appellant on his giving to the marshal a delivery bond, conditioned to properly keep and take care of the property, and deliver the same to the marshal on demand, of so much thereof as might be required to be sold on execution to satisfy any judgment which might be recovered against the defendants in the action, or to pay the appraised value of the property, not exceeding the amount of the judgment and costs. The appellant was made on his own motion a party defendant to the suit in order to assert his title, but on motion of the plaintiff, his name was stricken from the record without prejudice to his right to enforce his claim in some other form. Such further proceedings were then had, that, as provided by the statute, a large number of the creditors of Frey & Maag came into the attachment suit for the purpose of obtaining judgments and participating in the distribution of the fund arising from the sale of the attached property. Judgment was subsequently rendered therein in favor of the original plaintiffs, and of these several creditors, respectively, and it was ordered that the attached property be sold by the marshal for the satisfaction thereof. The appellant, as required by the condition of his bond, not being able to return the specific property attached, paid to the marshal the full amount of its appraised value. He thereupon, the money being in the marshal's hands, undistributed, filed this bill, to which all the parties in the attachment suit, and the marshal, are made defendants, praying that the marshal be restrained from paying the said fund, or any part thereof, to the creditors in the attachment suit, and that the same be adjudged to belong to the appellant, and paid to him accordingly.

It is alleged that all the attachment creditors are non-residents of the state of Indiana; but it does not appear from the record what is the citizenship of any of the parties to the bill. The ground of the decree of the circuit court was that the appellant had a plain and adequate remedy at law.

D. V. Burns, for appellant.

Lew Wallace and A. W. Hatch, for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 278-279 intentionally omitted]

MATTHEWS, J.

This appeal is prosecuted to review a decree dismissing the bill of the appellant for want of equity. The case made by the bill is as follows:

According to the law of Indiana, the giving of the delivery bond did not divest the lien of the attachment upon the goods which remained, in contemplation of law, in the possession of the officer, (Gass v. Williams, 46 Ind. 253;) so that if the proceedings had been in the state court, the appellant, while the goods remained in specie, on demand and refusal of a return of the property to him by the officer, might have maintained an action of replevin on proof of title. Louthain v. Fitzer, 78 Ind. 449. Having disposed of the goods, so that he could not return them in specie, it would seem that no action of replevin could thereafter be brought, and, on general principles, be could not set up his ownership as a defense to an action on the bond. Drake, Attachm. § 340. Under the practice in Indiana he would not be permitted to become a party to the suit in order to have his title there determined. Risher v. Gilpin, 29 Ind. 53. And, accordingly, in the attachment suit of Hyde Bros. against Frey & Maag, as stated in the bill, the appellant, having been at first made a party on his own motion, was susequently dismissed from it. Payment of the appraised value of the attached property to the marshal, which, by the terms of the delivery bond, he was bound to make, it can hardly be insisted deprived him of his title to the goods and their proceeds. Without giving the delivery bond, it is true, the owner could have brought suit against the marshal for trespass, although that would not in all cases furnish an adequate remedy by giving damages for the value of the property taken. Watson v. Sutherland, 5 Wall. 74.

The only legal remedy which can be said to be adequate for the purpose of protecting and preserving his right to the possession of his property was an action of replevin. Of this remedy at law in the state court he was deprived by the fact that the proceedings in attachment were pending in a court of the United States, because the property attached, being in the hands of the marshal, is regarded as in the custody of the court. This was the point decided in Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450, the doctrine of which must be considered as fully and firmly established in this court. In meeting the objections made in argument to the conclusion of the court in that case, Mr. Justice NELSON, delivering his opinion, used the following language:

'Another misapprehension under which the defendant in error labors, and in which the court below fell, was in respect to the appropriate remedy of the plaintiffs in the replevin suit for the grievance complained of. It was supposed that they were utterly remediless in the federal courts, inasmuch as both parties were citizens of Massachusetts. But those familiar with the practice of the federal courts have found no difficulty in applying a remedy, and one much more effectual than replevin, and more consistent with the order and harmony of judicial proceedings, as may be seen by reference to the following cases: Pennock v. Coe, 23 How. 117; Gue v. Tide Water Canal Co., decided this term; 12 Pet. 164; 8 Pet. 1; 5 Cranch, 288.

'The principle is that a bill filed on the equity side of the court to restrain or regulate judgments or suits at law in the same court, and thereby prevent injustice or an inequitable advantage under mesne or final process, is not an original suit, but ancillary and dependent, supplementary merely to an original suit out of which it had arisen, and is maintained without reference to the citizenship or residence of the parties.

'The case in 8 Pet. 1, which was among the first which came before the court, deserves, perhaps, a word of explanation. It would seem, from a remark in the opinion, that the power of the court upon the bill was limited to a case between the parties to the original suit. This was probably not intended, as any party may file the bill whose interests are affected by the suit at law.'

It has been sometimes said that this statement was obiter dictum, and not to be treated as the law of the case; but it was, in point of fact, a substantial part of the argument in support of the judgment, and, on consideration, we feel bound to confirm it in substance as logically necessary to it; for, if we affirm, as that decision does, the exclusive right of the circuit court in such a case to maintain the custody of property, seized and held under its process by its officers, and thus to take from owners, wrongfully deprived of possession, the ordinary means of redress by suits for restitution in state courts, where any one may sue, without regard to citizenship, it is but common justice to furnish them with an equal and adequate remedy in the court itself which maintains control of the property; and, as this may not be done by original suits, on account of the nature of the jurisdiction as limited by differences of citizenship, it can only be accomplished by the exercise of the inherent and equitable powers of the court in auxiliary and dependent proceedings incidental to the cause in which the property is held, so as to give to the claimant from whose possession it has been taken, the opportunity to assert and enforce his right. And this jurisdiction is well defined by Mr. Justice NELSON, in the statement quoted, as arising out of the inhereint power of every court of justice to control its own process so as to prevent and redress wrong.

This principle was illustrated and applied in the case of Bank v. Turnbull, 16 Wall. 190. There, under a statute of Virginia, the claimant of property taken in execution upon a judgment rendered against another, gave to the sheriff a suspending and forthcoming bond, which stayed the sale and maintained his possession of the property until the title could be determined by a statutory interpleader. This issue having been properly directed in the state court, between parties who were citizens of different states, a petition was filed for its removal to the circuit court of the United States, under the removal act of March 2, 1867. The order of removal was reversed by this court on the ground that the suit 'was merely auxiliary to the original action, a graft...

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