69 F. 701 | N.D. Cal. | 1895
By the amended bill in equity, Aled April 22, 1895, the Puget Bound National Bank of Seattle, Wash., was formally made a party, being substituted for John Doe. It being a nonresident of this district, it was sought to bring it be
‘Tndopencleuily of any- express statutory authority, there is no power in a court: of equity to order actual personal service to he effected ujxm a defendant heyond its territorial jurisdiction; hut, in a few cases, such courts have for more than a century assumed the power of ordering service to he made within 4heir jurisdiction upon some person for the absent defendant, and have treated such service as valid. In suits to stay proceedings at. law in the same court, the service of a subpoena upon the attorney of the plaintiff at law- may he allowed, and will then hind the latter, if he be heyond the territorial jurisdiction of the court. A similar practice would, in all probability, he allowed in serving process under hills not original,—namely, hills of revivor, supplemental hills, and hills of revivor and supplement,—which are nothing more than continuations of the suits upon which they operate.”
It is claimed by tbe counsel for complainant, in support of the substituted service upon Messrs. Roth'child & Acli, that (.his suit is merely ancillary and subsidiary to the original suit No. 221 (6 Fed. 753), and the ancillary suits growing out of case No. 221 which have occupied the attention of this court for now 16 years past, and whose ultimate object is to recover the assets of the bankrupt firm of Sehoenfeld, Cohen & Co. fraudulently obtained by Harris Lewis, as adjudged by the former decrees of this court, and now alleged to be held and concealed by him. While the palpable purpose of the present bill is to reach certain personal property in the hands of Lewis and others, alleged to be proceeds or profits of the assets of Sehoenfeld, Cohen & Go., and while, as to Lewis, the present bill is in the nature of a continuation of the original suit, still, as to the-Puget Sound National Bank of Seattle, it is an original proceeding. This is the first attempt to bring it into this litigation. The reasons that would justify the service by substitution of the subpoena on Harris Lewis, the original defendant, were he out of the jurisdiction of the court, would, obviously, not obtain as to the Puget Sound National Bank of Seattle, an entirely new party, and a stranger to the former proceedings. Bowen v. Christian, supra; Christinas v. Russell, 14 Wall. 69, 80. This point was definitely settled in Dunn v. Clarke, 8 Pet. 1. In that case, it was held, upon a bill to enjoin a judgment at law recovered in the circuit court against the representative of the plaintiff, that if other parties are made by the bill, and different interests involved, the bill is, as to them, an original suit, and the jurisdiction of the court must depend upon their liability to be sued by the plaintiff, as in other cases. Under this view of the law, I do not see how the Puget (sound National Bank of Seattle, Wash., not transacting business or having a regularly constituted and acknowledged agent in this district, can be brought, before the court by means of a substituted