Fidelity Insurance, Trust Safe Deposit Co v. Huntington

• Decision Date: 15 March 1886
• Citation: Fidelity Insurance, Trust Safe Deposit Co v. Huntington, 6 S.Ct. 733, 117 U.S. 280, 29 L.Ed. 898 (1886)
• Parties: FIDELITY INSURANCE, TRUST & SAFE DEPOSIT CO. v. HUNTINGTON. Filed
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

6 S.Ct. 733

117 U.S. 280

29 L.Ed. 898

FIDELITY INSURANCE, TRUST & SAFE DEPOSIT CO.v.HUNTINGTON.

Filed March 15, 1886.

Richard C. Dale, E. W. Kittredge, and John C. Bullitt, for appellant.

R. A. Harrison, Wm. M. Ramsey, Lawrence Maxwell, Jr., and Mortimer Matthews, for appellee.

WAITE, C. J.

This is an appeal under section 5 of the act of March 3, 1875, (18 St. 470, c. 137,) from an order of the circuit court remanding a suit which had been removed from a state court.The case is this: Collis P. Huntington, a citizen of New York, recovered a judgment in the court of common pleas of Scioto county, Ohio, on the twenty-ninth of May, 1885, against the Scioto Valley Railroad Company, an Ohio corporation, for $639,305.67.Executions were afterwards issued upon this judgment, and levied upon the railroad, rolling stock, and other personal property of the company.This property was covered by several mortgages or deeds of trust; one to the Fidelity Insurance, Trust & Safe Deposit Company, a Pennsylvania corporation; another to Samuel Thomas, a citizen of New York; another to the Central Trust Company of New York, a New York corporation; another to Henry K. McKarg, a citizen of New York; another to the Metropolitan Trust Company of the City of New York, a New York corporation; and others to various citizens of Ohio.Such being the condition of the property, Huntington began a suit in the court of common pleas of Scioto county, the object of which was to marshal the liens, and obtain a sale of the property, free of incumbrance, to pay his judgment, after satisfying all prior claims, and in the mean time to have a receiver appointed.To this suit all the several lienholders were made parties, and the Fidelity Insurance, Trust & Safe Deposit Company answered, setting up its mortgage as a first lien, and asking that the property be sold and the proceeds applied to the satisfaction of that mortgage debt.This being done, the same company presented a petition for the removal of the suit to the circuit court of the United States, on the ground that there was in the suit a controversy which was wholly between citizens of different states, and which could be fully determined as between them, to-wit, a controversy between the petitioner, a citizen of Pennsylvania, and Huntington, the plaintiff, and all the defendants, except the petitioner, citizens of states other than Pennsylvania.When the suit was entered in the circuit court it was remanded, and to reverse that order this appeal was taken.

The suit as brought by Huntington is a creditors' bill to...