24 Kan. 435 | Kan. | 1880
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The defendants in error commenced a civil action in the state of Missouri against the plaintiff-in error, to recover a sum of money due defendants in error for goods, wares and merchandise. At the time the suit was commenced both plaintiff and defendants were heads of families and resided in Johnson county, Kansas. When defendants in error commenced their suit in Missouri they attached one horse, which was released on bond, the case continued, and both plaintiff and defendants returned to Johnson county, Kansas. Plaintiff in error then commenced this action in the district court of Johnson county, Kansas, and obtained a temporary
“ I am the plaintiff in this action, and live in Aubrey township, Johnson county, state of Kansas, near the line dividing or separating Kansas and Missouri. I have a wife and two children; they live on the farm with me. I have lived and make my living on the farm. I own 120 acres of land. The defendants, Young & Short, are merchants at Aubrey village, in Johnson county, state of Kansas. I owe them a store bill for goods which I bought of. them in 1878 and 1879; it is an open account; it is about $68.98. On the 17th day-of June, 1879, I went to mill at Belton, Cass county, Missouri, and had a team of horses, a wagon and harness with me, and while waiting for my grist at the mill a summons was served on me from a justice’s court of Cass county, Missouri, by a constable, in a suit that day commenced against me by Young & Short, in their firm-name, for the amount of my store bill of $68.98, and at the same time they had the constable to attach my mare. It was one of the span of horses I was then working to my wagon. The constable attached the mare in that suit, and I gave him a redelivery bond for the mare and brought her home to Kansas with me. I did not then, nor do I now, own any other work animal or team. The animal I worked with the mare that was attached, belonged to my wife.”
(Cross-examination:) “1 have never paid the $68.98, nor any part of it. It is an honest, just debt. "When this suit was commenced I owed Young & Short several hundred dollars for goods. They held, my notes for the amount. Since the attachment suit in Missouri was commenced, Young & Short have dissolved partnership, and I took up the notes since the injunction issued in this case, by giving a valuable or blooded horse for them. The horse belonged to my wife, which she got from her brother when it was a colt. I took up the notes by giving the horse for them, with my wife’s consent. I own nothing of the horse kind or team, except the mare that was attached. The bill of $68.98 is for gro
Upon these facts did the court err in refusing to continue the injunction? Of the power of the court to interfere and restrain the defendants from' prosecuting their action in Missouri, there can be no question. A court of equity by injunction acts upon the person, and when it has the'person of the defendant within its reach, it may forbid him from carrying on any prosecution proceedings anywhere. The authorities are full and .clear upon this point.
The supreme court of Massachusetts, in the case of Dehon v. Foster, 4 Allen, 545, in a very learned and lucid opinion, considered the subject in -all its bearings, and declared the doctrine to be clear and indisputable, that a court of chancery, upon a proper case being made, has authority to restrain persons within its jurisdiction from prosecuting suits, either in courts of its own state or of other states or foreign countries. This jurisdiction, it affirmed, is not founded upon any right to interfere with or control the proceedings of other tribunals in other states, but on the clear authority vested in courts of equity over persons within their jurisdiction, and amenable to process to restrain them from doing acts which will work wrong and injury to others, and are contrary to equity and good conscience. The attaching creditors in that case were held liable to be restrained by injunction. The exercise of this jurisdiction is sanctioned by English precedents! Mackintosh v. Ogilvie, 4 Term Rep. 193; 3 Swanst. 365. See also, Shook v. Snetzer, 25 Ohio St. 516; Engel v. Scheuerman, 40 Ga. 206; Dehon v. Foster, 4 Allen (Mass.) 545; Vail v. Knapp, 49 Barbour, 299; Briggs v. French, 1 Sumner, 504; Massie v. Watts, 6 Cranch, 148; Keyser v. Rice, 47 Md. 203; Field v. Holbrook, 3 Abb. Pr. (O. S.) 377; Rorer on Inter-State Law, p. 42v; 2 Story’s Eq. Jur., §§ 899, 900; Hilliard on Inj., p. 234, et seq.
These authorities all agree that equity will not interfere to protect a mere legal right, but that it must also appear .from the relations and circumstances of the parties that it would be inequitable to permit the continuance of the foreign action. We cannot think it so appears in this case, and therefore the judgment must be affirmed.