Hobbs Mfg. Co. v. Gooding

• Decision Date: 01 June 1908
• Docket Number: 448.
• Parties: HOBBS MFG. CO. v. GOODING et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

164 F. 91

HOBBS MFG. CO. v. GOODING et al.

No. 448.

United States Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts.

June 1, 1908

Edward S. Beach, for complainant.

Elder &amp Whitman, for defendant Sarah E. Glazier.

C. F Weed and A. H. Weed, for defendants Geo. W. Glazier, Mary F Lord, Charles C. Briggs, John C. Metcalf, Flora A. Tyler, J C. Metcalf Paper Box Machine Co., George L. Metcalf Wood & Paper Box Company, and Levi C. Wade.

Wm. A. Macleod, for defendant George P. Dike.

Raymond T. Parke, for defendants Eugene H. Taylor and George E. Gooding.

Charles Warren, for defendant John T. Robinson Company.

LOWELL Circuit Judge.

The complainant, a citizen of Massachusetts, brought a bill in equity (hereinafter called the first bill) to restrain the infringement of a patent, and obtained a final decree for the payment of the sum of $15,000.

Execution was taken out thereupon, and the officer's return was as follows:

'Pursuant hereunto I, on the 7th day of February, 1908, attached one (1) share of capital stock of the John T. Robinson Company, Massachusetts corporation, standing in the name of the within-named Eugene H. Taylor, and on the same day and at the same time I attached one (1) share of stock in the said John T. Robinson Company standing in the name of the within named George E. Gooding, and I have given in hand to J. Albert Robinson, treasurer and clerk of said corporation, at Hyde Park, a true and attested copy of this execution for both Gooding and Taylor, and so much of my return indorsed thereon as relates to the attachment of said stocks. I also made search for any property belonging to the within-named defendants in Lynn, Salem, and Hyde Park, and was unable to find any. Therefore I return this execution into court unsatisfied.

'J. H. Waters, Deputy U.S. Marshal.'

Thereupon the complainant brought a bill (hereinafter called the second bill), setting out the facts above stated, and alleging that sundry defendants to the first bill had conveyed their property for the purpose of defrauding the complainant creditor. The second bill prayed that the conveyances be set aside, and that the execution be satisfied. Some of the alleged fraudulent grantees, being citizens of Massachusetts, and others being citizens of other states, were made parties to the second bill. Some of the defendants to the second bill have moved to dismiss it, upon the ground that this court is without jurisdiction thereof, inasmuch as the complainant and some of the defendants are alike citizens of Massachusetts.

The first bill, which sought the protection of patent rights, was properly brought in the Circuit Court, inasmuch as it raised a federal question. Considered by itself, the second bill now before the court is substantially an ordinary creditor's bill, and raises no federal question. The complainant contends, however, that the court has jurisdiction of this creditor's bill, inasmuch as it is ancillary or supplemental to the first bill to restrain infringement. The complainant urges that diversity of citizenship is therefore not necessary to sustain this court's jurisdiction.

Most of the cases cited by the complainant fail to support the jurisdiction of the court. They show merely that the federal court is not without jurisdiction of an ancillary or supplemental bill to revive an original bill, to restrain a suit pending in the same court, to modify a decree or judgment therein, to dispose of a res in the court's possession, and the like. They give no support to the proposition that, because a federal court has obtained jurisdiction of a controversy in which the complainant holds an unsatisfied execution for damages, the court has therefore jurisdiction of a creditor's bill to satisfy this execution by reaching property which has been conveyed by the defendant in fraud of his creditors. To take jurisdiction of the case at bar involves the right to entertain such a bill in every case.

But in Dewey v. West Fairmont Gas Co., 123 U.S. 329, 8 Sup.Ct. 148, 31 L.Ed. 179, the Supreme Court sustained federal jurisdiction in a case like that at bar. The record and briefs in that case have been examined. A., a citizen of New York, brought an action against B., a citizen of West Virginia, alleging that B., as vendee, refused to carry out a contract of sale. The cause was removed into the Circuit Court of the United States. B. thereupon filed a bill in equity in that court, alleging that the goods delivered did not come up to sample, seeking damages, praying an injunction against further proceedings at law, and further praying that A.'s assets, fraudulently assigned to C., might be subjected to the payment of B.'s claim. C. was a citizen of West Virginia, and objected to the jurisdiction of the court, inasmuch as there was no diversity of citizenship between B. and C. The Supreme Court sustained the...