McLane v. Manning

• Decision Date: 30 June 1864
• Citation: 60 N.C. 608
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: RACHEL MCLANE Admr. of WILLIAM H. MCLANE v. JOHN MANNING, CHARLES B. MALLET and -- BROWN.

60 N.C. 608

RACHEL MCLANE Admr. of WILLIAM H. MCLANE

v.JOHN MANNING, CHARLES B. MALLET and -- BROWN.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June Term, 1864.

A person acting as an officer of the law under a judicial order or judgment ought not to be made a party defendant to a bill for an injunction, to restrain the execution of such order or judgment.

The State Courts have no jurisdiction to restrain persons from acting under the orders or judgments of the Confederate Courts. unless they have been obtained by fraud. Whether they have jurisdiction then, this court declines to express any opinion. They have no jurisdiction to review the proceedings of the Confederate Conrts.

The cases of Edney vs. King, 4 Ired. Eq. 465, Lackay vs. Curtis, 6 Ired. Eq. 199 and Witherspoon vs. Carmichael, 6 Ired. Eq. 143, cited and approved.

The court can not give relief on the ground of frauds, unless it be positively and distinctly alleged.

The bill charges that a corporation was created by the General Assembly ot this State for the purpose of working the Coal and Iron Mines at Egypt, in Chatham county, by the name of “the Governor's Creek Coal and Iron Manufacturing and Transportation Company,” that they engaged extensively in the business for which they were created, and the original plaintiff William H. McLane, was employed as mining engineer and manager in 1852, and has continued to act as such until November 1862, he being also a large shareholder--and the largest shareholder who is a citizen of the Confederate States -- that nine-tenths of the stockholders are citizens of the United States; that the Company are indebted to him in the sum of $4,870, or thereabouts, for arrears of salary and advances made by him, that suitable buildings had been erected by him by order of the stockholders, for the officers of the company, and that one of them has been occupied by him, by assignment of the company, as a dwelling house ever since it was built, and is now occupied by him; the plaintiff was served with process from the District Court of the Confederate States for the District of North Carolina, to appear at said Court to be holden at Goldsborough, on _______ of November, 1861, to make a disclosure of all he knew concerning the company and its affairs: he appeared at Court and filed his garnishment. Such proceedings were had that an order was made by the District Judge at Chambers, that the plaintiff should be removed from his office of manager, and a successor appointed, and in obedience thereto, Manning, the receiver, appointed J. N. Clegg manager. Clegg was afterwards removed by order of the Court made without notice of any proceeding intended to be had in the matter, and the defendant Brown and Mallett appointed managers. The plaintiff charges that in the proceedings of the District Court, the requirements of the sequestration act were not pursued, and that no decrce sequestrating the Egypt property has ever been made. He charges that secret information has been given by one of the defendants, not saying which defendant, nor what the information was, nor that it was false, and he also charges that the “defendants Brown and Mallett, have from the first Court held in November 1861 to the last of November 1862, been unceasing in their efforts to have him (the plaintiff) removed, without cause, and solely with the view of being put into the management themselves.” The bill contains no other charge or insinnation of fraudulent conduct or bad motives on the part of the defendants. It then charges that an order was made by the District Court at...