Swift v. Black Panther Oil & Gas Co.

• Decision Date: 30 March 1917
• Docket Number: 4749.
• Citation: 244 F. 20
• Parties: SWIFT v. BLACK PANTHER OIL & GAS CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

244 F. 20

SWIFT v. BLACK PANTHER OIL & GAS CO.

No. 4749.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

March 30, 1917

Malcolm E. Rosser, of Muskogee, Okl. (J. R. Miller and T. R. Dean both of Sapulpa, Okl., F. F. Lamb, of Okmulgee, Okl., Geo. S Ramsey, of Muskogee, Okl., and Edgar A. De Meules, of Tulsa Okl., on the brief), for appellant.

A. C Cruce, of Oklahoma City, Okl. (C. B. Stuart, M. K. Cruce, J. R. Keaton, Frank Wells, and D. I. Johnston, all of Oklahoma City, Okl., on the brief), for appellee.

Before SANBORN and HOOK, Circuit Judges, and AMIDON, District Judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

George M. Swift appeals to this court from an interlocutory decree of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma which enjoins him from enforcing-- against the three-fourths working interest, or the proceeds thereof derived, or to be derived, during the receivership in the suit of United States v. Bessie Wildcat and others in that court by the Black Panther Oil & Gas Company, a corporation, hereafter called the Panther, from the operation for oil and gas on the northwest quarter of section 9, township 18 north, of range 7 east, in Creek county, Okl., under the lease thereof to the Panther made by the receiver by order of the federal court on April 20, 1914-- the judgment or decree of the state district court of Creek county, Okl., in the suit of Swift, Trustee, v. Panther, rendered January 15, 1916, for Swift's recovery of the Panther out of the said three-fourths working interest of $113,330.56 and one-eighth of the oil derived from the land subsequent to December 15, 1915, either by writs of execution, or garnishments, or injunctions in or issued out of the state court.

Before the issue of the injunction of the federal court challenged, Mr. Swift, for the purpose of enforcing his decree, had caused the state court to issue a writ of execution, and had caused the sheriff to levy it upon and to advertise for sale thereunder the interest of the Panther in the land and in the oil and gas produced therefrom, had caused certain third parties to be garnisheed as creditors of the Panther, and had obtained an order from the state court on March 29, 1916, forbidding the Panther from paying out any money or doing anything of any kind that might prevent it from paying over all the money it then had, or might thereafter obtain, from any banks, or from the sale of any oil or gas or other of its property, to the clerk of the state court, to apply upon Swift's judgment in case such court, or any other court, should subsequently order such judgment to be so paid. In this state of the case the Panther presented to the federal court in the Wildcat suit, to which it was a party defendant from its commencement, a petition for its injunction against Swift's interference by means of the execution, garnishments, or injunction of the state court with the ownership or disposition by the Panther of the three-fourths working interest in the oil and gas derived under the receiver's lease, or in the proceeds thereof, on the ground that Swift was estopped by the proceedings in the Wildcat suit, to which his assignor and predecessor in interest was a party before Swift obtained his claim, from in any way enforcing that claim against that three-fourths interest or any of the proceeds thereof. Swift answered the petition of the Panther, evidence was introduced by each of the parties, and after a full hearing the court sustained the position of the Panther and ordered the issue of its injunction.

The first reason urged upon our attention by counsel for Mr. Swift for the reversal of the interlocutory decree of the federal court for the issuance of its injunction is that the national court had no jurisdiction to issue its injunction, because section 720 of the United States Revised Statutes, which is now section 265 of the Judicial Code, reads:

'The writ of injunction shall not be granted by any court of the United States to stay proceedings in any court of a state, except in cases where such injunction may be authorized by any law relating to proceedings in bankruptcy.'

In support of this contention counsel cite Diggs & Keith v. Wolcott, 4 Cranch, 179, 2 L.Ed. 587, Peck v. Jenness, 7 How. 612, 623, 624, 625, 12 L.Ed. 841, Haines v. Carpenter, 91 U.S. 254, 23 L.Ed. 345, Whitney v. Wilder, 54 F. 554, 4 C.C.A. 510, and other cases of like character wherein the state court first acquired jurisdiction of the subject-matter in controversy. In cases of this class this act of Congress undoubtedly controls, and the federal courts may not interfere by injunction or otherwise with the proceedings of the state courts which have first acquired jurisdiction of the subject-matter. But it is equally true that in a case in which a federal court first obtains jurisdiction of the subject-matter in controversy, and where it acts in aid of its own jurisdiction to render its orders or decrees, or the title or disposition under them of the property within that jurisdiction, effectual, it may, notwithstanding section 720, Revised Statutes, now section 265 of the Judicial Code, enjoin or restrain all proceedings in the state court which would have the effect of defeating or impairing its jurisdiction, or the orders, decrees, or titles it has made or is making in the exercise thereof. Sharon v. Terry (C.C.) 36 F. 337; French v. Hay, 22 Wall. 250, note, 22 L.Ed. 857; Dietzsch v. Huidekoper, 103 U.S. 494, 26 L.Ed. 497; Julian v. Central Trust Company, 193 U.S. 93, 112, 24 Sup.Ct. 399, 48 L.Ed. 629; Starr v. Chicago, Rock Island & P. Ry. Co. (C.C.) 110 F. 3, 6; Prout v. Starr, 188 U.S. 537, 23 Sup.Ct. 398, 47 L.Ed. 584; Lang v. Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf R. Co., 160 F. 355, 359, 360, 87 C.C.A. 307, 311, 312; Kansas City Gas Co. v. Kansas City (D.C.) 198 F. 500, 526; Guardian Trust Co. v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., 171 F. 43, 49, 96 C.C.A. 285, 291, 28 L.R.A. (N.S.) 620; Western Union Tel. Co. v. U.S. & Mexican Trust Co., 221 F. 545, 553, 137 C.C.A. 113, 121; McKinney v. Landon, 209 F. 300, 305, 306, 126 C.C.A. 226, 231, 232. The law upon this subject has been repeatedly declared by the Supreme Court and by this court. In Lang v. Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf R. Co., 160 F. 359, 360, 87 C.C.A. 311, 312, the rule was thus stated by this court:

'The court which first acquires jurisdiction of specific property by the lawful seizure thereof, or by the due commencement of a suit in that court. from which it appears that it is, or will become, necessary to a complete determination of the controversy involved, or to the enforcement of the judgment or decree therein, to seize, charge with a lien, sell, or exercise other like dominion over it, thereby withdraws that property from the jurisdiction of every other court and entitles the former to retain the control of it requisite to effectuate its judgment or decree in the suit free from the interference of every other tribunal. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company v. Lake Street Railroad Co., 177 U.S. 51, 61, 20 Sup.Ct. 564, 44 L.Ed. 667; Peck v. Jenness, 7 How. 612, 12 L.Ed. 841; Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450, 16 L.Ed. 749; Moran v. Sturges. 154 U.S. 256, 14 Sup.Ct. 1019, 38 L.Ed. 981; Central Bank v. Stevens, 169 U.S. 432, 18 Sup.Ct. 403, 42 L.Ed. 807; Williams v. Neely, 67 C.C.A. 171, 185, 134 F. 1, 15, 69 L.R.A. 232; Barber Asphalt Co. v. Morris, 66 C.C.A. 55, 58, 132 F. 945, 948, 67 L.R.A. 761; Gates v. Bucki, 53 F. 961, 969, 4 C.C.A. 116, 128, 129. * * * The jurisdiction of a court over a subject-matter or a cause once lawfully acquired includes the power to enforce its judgment or decree, and to protect the title of those holding under it from every attempt to avoid or annul it. Chicot Co. v. Sherwood, 148 U.S. 529, 533, 534, 13 Sup.Ct. 695, 37 L.Ed. 546; Julian v. Central Trust Company, 193 U.S. 93, 112, 24 Sup.Ct. 399, 48 L.Ed. 629; Wabash Railroad Company v. Adelbert College, 208 U.S. 38, 28 Sup.Ct. 182 (52 L.Ed. 379); Barber Asphalt Pav. Co. v. Morris, 132 F. 945, 949, 66 C.C.A. 55, 59, 67, 67 L.R.A. 761; Brun v. Mann, 80 C.C.A. 513, 151 F. 145 (12 L.R.A. (N.S.) 154).'

The foregoing rules are no longer debatable, and by them the injunctive order of the federal court must be tested. The exact subject-matter in controversy between the two courts is the three-fourths working interest in the oil and gas and in the proceeds of that interest derived and to be derived by the Panther, during the receivership in the federal court, from the land leased to the Panther by the receiver by order of that court on April 20, 1914, and the first question is: Which court first lawfully obtained jurisdiction of that subject-matter? The answer is found in the claims of the parties and the history of the proceedings in the two courts.

Prior to May, 1903, the land here in question had been allotted and patented under the acts of Congress to Barney Thlocco, a Creek Indian. On November 1, 1913, the United States commenced a suit in equity against Bessie Wildcat, the Panther, Martha Jackson, a minor, Saber Jackson, as her guardian and next friend, and others, to avoid the allotment and patent to Thlocco, and to exclude the defendants in that suit from any right or title to the land and to the oil and gas that might be derived therefrom. The defendants Martha Jackson and her guardian, Saber Jackson, answered, and claimed that Thlocco died in 1904 intestate, that Annie Nevy was his sole heir, that Saber Jackson married her, that Martha Jackson was their daughter, that Annie Jackson, formerly Annie Nevy, her mother, has also died, and that consequently Martha Jackson is the sole heir and the owner of the land, and Saber Jackson has a life estate in the land as tenant by the curtesy consummate. On November 13, 1913, Saber Jackson made an oil...