Reynolds v. Adden

• Decision Date: 19 May 1890
• Citation: 136 U.S. 348,10 S.Ct. 843,34 L.Ed. 360
• Parties: REYNOLDS v. ADDEN et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

136 U.S. 348

10 S.Ct. 843

34 L.Ed. 360

REYNOLDS v. ADDEN et al.

May 19, 1890.

Gus. A. Breaux, for appellant.

A. V. Lynde and A. A. Ranney, for appellees.

BRADLEY, J.

This suit was originally commenced in the civil district court for the parish of Orleans, La., by petition filed by John M. B. Reynolds against John Adden, to restrain him from further prosecuting two certain suits in the same court, or proceeding upon execution therein, and to have the same declared illegal and void. The suits referred to had been commenced by said John Adden by attachment against the goods of his son, John H. Adden, situated in a store in New Orleans occupied by said John H. Adden for carrying on his business therein under the management, as alleged, of the father, John Adden; the son being a resident of Reading, Mass. The grounds of the relief sought, as stated in the petition, are that on the 10th of March, 1882, John H. Adden, a resident of Reading, in the county of Middlesex, and state of Massachusetts, presented a petition of insolvency to the proper court there, from which a warrant was issued for the seizure of all his property, real and personal, and other proceedings were had as usual in such cases, and, at a meeting of the creditors on the 23d of March, one Stillman E. Parker and the petitioner, Reynolds, were appointed assignees, and accepted the said trust, and gave bonds as required by law, the said John Adden executing the bond of said Parker as his surety; that, in the schedule of assets filed by the insolvent with his petition of insolvency, there appeared to be in his store, No. 58 Custom-House street, New Orleans, about 600 cases of h oes, valued at $18,341.47, and other property, accounts, notes, etc., amounting to about $28,000, notes and accounts due to the Boston store amounting to about $10,000, and other assets in Boston amounting to about $3,000; that, on the petitioner going to New Orleans to take possession of the assets there, he discovered that the said John Adden (the father) had instituted suit in that court against John H. Adden for $20,000 on the 16th of March, 1882, and had issued an attachment therein, and attached the property, and obtained judgment by default on the 3d of April, 1882, with lien and privilege on the property attached; and that on the 4th of April, 1882, he had obtained a second attachment in another suit upon notes of said John H. Adden amounting to over $6,000; all which proceedings of John Adden the petitioner alleged to be illegal, null, and void by reason of the insolvency proceedings in Massachusetts, he, the said John Adden, being a resident of Massachusetts, and bound thereby, as well as for irregularities in said proceedings themselves, referred to in the petition, and the complicity, as alleged, of the said John Adden with his said son in the measures taken by the latter. The petitioner alleged that he had applied to his co-assignee, Stillman E. Parker, to join him in the petition, but he had refused.

A rule to show cause why a writ of injunction should not* issue was granted and heard by the court, upon which hearing a certified copy of the insolvent proceedings in Massachusetts was presented and received in evidence; and on the 15th of May, 1882, a preliminary injunction was issued, restraining the defendant John Adden from enforcing his judgment in the first suit, and from proceeding further in the second, also restraining the sheriff of the parish from selling the goods seized by him. A motion to dissolve the injunction was subsequently made, and after argument was refused. The principal grounds of refusal were that John Adden was a resident of Massachusetts, and had become surety of one of the assignees of his son, and was therefore estopped and bound by the proceedings in insolvency. On the 24th of May, 1883, the defendant John Adden filed a petition for the removal of the cause into the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Louisiana. In this petition Adden contends, among other things, that the insolvent laws of Massachusetts, under which Reynolds claims the property in controversy, impair the obligation of the contract between the petitioner and John H. Adden, and deprive the petitioner of his property without due process of law, and are in violation of the constitution of the United States; that he had already, in an answer filed in the case, claimed that the said insolvent laws deprived him, who was a citizen of the state of New Hampshire, of the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states, and were in violation of the fourth article of the constitution of the United States. And, after setting up various other claims of privileges and immunities under the constitution of the United States alleged to be violated by said insolvent proceedings, the petitioner further stated that, at the commencement of this suit, and continuously since, he had been, and still was, a citizen of the state of New Hampshire, and that said Reynolds and John H. Adden then were, and had continually been, citizens of Massachusetts, and that Duffy, the sheriff of the parish of Orleans, was and is a citizen of the state of Louisiana. He further represented that in said suit the real controversy was between said Reynolds and the petitioner and that John H. Adden and Duffy, the sheriff, were not necessary, but merely formal, defendants. The civil district court refused the application for the removal of the cause; but, a certified copy of the proceedings being presented to the circuit court of the United States, that court took jurisdiction of the case, and ordered it to be docketed on the equity side of the court A motion was made to remand the cause to the state court, which after argument was refused. Evidence was taken as to the residence and citizenship of the defendant John Adden, and as to his connection with the business of his son, and the general character of the proceedings had in the insolvency case in Massachusetts, and in the suits instituted by John Adden in New Orleans at the final hearing. The court dismissed the petition or bill of complaint, and the petitioner, Reynolds, has appealed.

The first question which we shall consider is as to the jurisdiction of the circuit court of the United States. It is strenuously contended by the appellant that the case ought not to have been removed from the state court, and ought to have been remanded to that court upon the motion made for that purpose. The ground of this contention is that John Adden, the defendant, was a citizen of Massachusetts, and not a citizen of New Hampshire, as alleged by him in his petition for removal, or that, if he was not in fact a citizen of Massachusetts, he was estopped from denying that he was such by his acts and declarations in the proceedings, both in Massachusetts and in New Orleans. In the insolvency proceedings in Massachusetts, he...