84 Wis. 60 | Wis. | 1893
It is not disputed but that the proceedings in the supreme court of New York were properly instituted and conducted, and the dissolution of the corporation regularly adjudged, upon the voluntary application of its trust-oes, and the respondent appointed receiver of all its property, assets, and estate according to the statute of that state, with a view of applying the proceeds equally to the payment of all its creditors, and the distribution of any residue equally to and among its stockholders. The plaintiff in this action wras at the time, and still is, a resident and citizen of the state of New York, of which state the corporation was a citizen, and he was served with an injunction in that proceeding restraining him, as a creditor of the corporation, from commencing any suit against it to enforce the collection of his debt, in order that the property and assets of the corporation might be properly and judiciously administered and applied by the receiver under the authority of the court appointing him, and in the regular and orderly administration of its estate. The proceeding did not-" contemplate'a discharge of the debtor as upon the surrender and application of his property under insolvent laws, but the property of the corporation was passed and vested, pursuant to the statute, in the respondent as its receiver, and the corporation was dissolved, so that no other than the receiver had a right to assert or maintain any title to it thereafter, and he could do so only for the purpose of its equal and just application to the payment of its creditors, and the just division of any residue to and among its stockholders. The effect of such voluntary dissolution was to. place all its property and assets in custodia legis lo be col-l lected and applied by the receiver. There is nothing in the statute of New York, or in this proceeding under it, in conflict with or in contravention of the laws or public policy of this state, as declared by its statutes and the decisions of its courts, nor does the present proceeding interfere, or
The situation, in brief, is that after the plaintiff had been enjoined, by a competent court of the jurisdiction in which he resided, from bringing any action against the corporation, his debtor, for the recovery of any sum of money, so that he should not obtain any undue preference over its other creditors, in violation of the purpose and policy of the law of New York and the proceeding thus instituted, and after an adjudication absolutely dissolving the corporation had been made, and after the title to its property, effects, and credits had been vested in the claimant as such receiver, the plaintiff came into the circuit court of this state, and commenced an action to recover his demand against a dissolved corporation. The question is one wholly between parties residing in New York and bound by the proceedings in question, neither of whom is in any position to invoke the assistance of the courts of this state to defeat or deny full effect to the proceeding in New York, or the title resulting from it. It is clear that the adjudication of dissolution, and the appointment of the receiver vesting in him the title to the chose in action in question, were binding on these parties, and the courts of New York would have enforced the receiver’s title bad this controversy originated there. The plaintiff asks us to aid him in vio
The tendency of modern adjudications is in favor of a liberal extension of inter-state comity, and against a narrow and provincial policy, which would deny proper effect to judicial proceedings of sister states under their statutes and rights claimed under them, simply because, technically, they are foreign and not domestic. In the recent case of Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107, the subject was very fully considered, and the various cases were cited; and it was there held that a creditor who is a citizen and resident of the same state with his debtor, against whom insolvent proceedings have been instituted in said state, is bound by the assignment of the debtor’s property in such proceedings, and if he attempts to attach or seize the personal property of the debtor, situated in another state.and embraced in the assignment, he may be restrained by injunction by the courts of the state in which he and his debtor reside; that every state exercises, to a greater or less extent, as it deems expedient, the comity of giving effect to the insolvent proceedings of other states, and where the
For these reasons we are of the opinion that the claim of the receiver, as stated in his intervening petition, to the fund in court, must be sustained, and that the circuit court properly overruled the plaintiff’s demurrer thereto.
By the Court.— The order of the circuit court is affirmed.