10 Blatchf. 518 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York | 1873
It appears from the papers that the profits growing out of one of the contracts must have reached those who received them through the medium of the Credit Mobilier of America, as assignee and owner of such contract, so as to make that corporation, as such, liable to respond in this suit to the plaintiff, and to those on whose behalf the suit is brought, and to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, as creditors of such corporation, for such profits, if any defendant is liable so to respond. It also satisfactorily appears, that the Credit Mobilier of America has some property, and that it has made one attempt to procure its dissolution. The property of corporations is held in trust for creditors, and may be pursued by them into whosesoever hands it may come, as well after as before the dissolution of the corpora
The provision of section 5 of the act of March 2, 1793 (1 Stat 334, 335), that a writ of injunction shall not be granted to stay proceedings in auy court of a state, has never been held to have, and cannot properly be construed to have, any application except to proceedings commenced in a court of a state before the proceedings are commenced in the federal court. Otherwise, after suit brought in a federal court, a party defendant could, by resorting to a suit in a state court, defeat, in many ways, the effective jurisdiction and action of the federal court, after it had obtained full jurisdiction of person and subject-matter. Moreover, the provision of the act of 1793 must be construed in connection with the provision of section 14 of the act of September 24, 1789 (1 Stat. 81, 82), that the federal courts shall have power to issue all writs which may be necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions. It may properly be considered as necessary for the continued exercise of the jurisdiction of this court over the corporation in question, that it should be restrained from taking stejjs, in a state court, to put itself out of existence.
The injunction asked for is proper, to restrain the corporation from taking any proceedings for its own dissolution, or for the appointment of a receiver of its effects, or for the distribution thereof among its stockholders, or any other persons, and from making any distribution or transfer of any of its effects. If this injunction shall at any time interfere with the doing by the corporation of anything which it ought properly to be allowed to do, application may be made to modify it