Opinion of the Court. a conveyance or other act, in pais, or the institution or the prosecution of an action in a foreign court, is well settled. In Penn v. Lord Baltimore, 1 Ves. Sen. 444, Lord Hardwicke recognized the principle that equity, as it acts primarily in personam and not merely in rem, may, where a person against whom relief is sought is within the jurisdiction, make a decree, upon the ground of a contract, or any equity subsisting between the parties, respecting property situated out of the jurisdiction. 2 Lead. Cas. in Eq., (4th American edition,) 1806, and cases. In McIntosh v. Oglivie, 4 T. R. 193, n.; S. C. 3 Swanston, 365, n.; S. C. 1 Dick. Ch. 119; Lord Hardwicke lays down the same doctrine as to restraining prosecution of suit. This case bears so close an analogy to that at bar that we give it in full, as follows, as reported in 4 T. R. : "The plaintiff was the assignee of a bankrupt, the defendant a creditor, who before the bankruptcy went into Scotland and made arrestments on debts due to the bankrupt from persons there. Upon an affidavit of the defendant's having got this money into his hands, a ne exeat was granted; and a motion was now made on the behalf of the defendant to discharge it, upon a supposition that he had a right to the goods as creditor by his arrestments. "The Lord Chancellor asked whether he had sentence before the bankruptcy; and, being answered in the negative, he said, Then it is like a foreign attachment, by which this court will not suffer a creditor to gain priority, if no sentence were pronounced before the bankruptcy. I cannot grant a prohibition. to the Court of Sessions; but I will certainly make an order on the party here to restrain him from getting a priority, and evading the laws of bankruptcy here. If the gentleman were not going abroad, I would do nothing; but as he is, I will not discharge the writ without his giving security to abide the event of the cause.' 999 Penn v. Lord Baltimore is cited with approval by Chief Justice Marshall in Massie v. Watts, 6 Cranch, 148, where a suit was instituted in the Circuit Court of Kentucky to compel the conveyance by the defendant of the legal title of land Opinion of the Court. in Ohio, on the ground that he had notice, when it was purchased, of the prior equity of the complainant. The defence was that the land was beyond the jurisdiction of the court and within the State of Ohio. This defence was overruled by the court below, and its decision affirmed by this court. "This court is of opinion," said the Chief Justice, "that in a case of fraud, of trust, or of contract, the jurisdiction of a court of chancery is sustainable wherever the person be found, although lands not within the jurisdiction of that court may be affected by the decree." p. 160. And in Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 723, it is said in the opinion of the court by Mr. Justice Field: "The State, through its tribunals, may compel persons domiciled within its limits to execute, in pursuance of their contracts respecting property elsewhere situated, instruments in such form and with such solemnities as to transfer the title, so far as such formalities can be complied with; and the exercise of this jurisdiction in no manner interferes with the supreme control over the property by the State within which it is situated. Penn v. Lord Baltimore, 1 Ves. Sen. 444; Massie v. Watts, 6 Cranch, 148; Watkins v. Holman, 16 Pet. 25; Corbett v. Nutt, 10 Wall. 464.” In Lord Portarlington v. Soulby, 3 Mylne & K. 104, 106, Lord Chancellor Brougham reviews the history of the jurisdiction to restrain parties from commencing or prosecuting actions in foreign countries, and concludes: "Nothing can be more unfounded than the doubts of the jurisdiction. That is grounded, like all other jurisdiction of the court, not upon any pretension to the exercise of judicial and administrative rights abroad, but on the circumstance of the person of the party, on whom this order is made, being within the power of the court." Earl of Oxford's Case, 1 Ch. Rep. 1; S. C. 2 Lead. Cas. in Eq. 1316. Mr. Justice Story states the principle thus : "But, although the courts of one country have no authority to stay proceedings in the courts of another, they have an undoubted authority to control all persons and things within their own territorial limits. When, therefore, both parties to a suit in a foreign country are resident within the territorial Opinion of the Court. limits of another country, the courts of equity in the latter may act in personam upon those parties, and direct them, by injunction, to proceed no further in such suit. In such a case, these courts act upon acknowledged principles of public law in regard to jurisdiction. They do not pretend to direct or control the foreign court, but, without regard to the situation of the subject matter of the dispute, they consider the equities between the parties, and decree in personam according to those equities; and enforce obedience to their decrees by process in personam. It is now held that whenever the parties are resident within a country, the courts of that country have full authority to act upon them personally with respect to the subject of suits in a foreign country, as the ends of justice may require; and, with that view, to order them to take, or to omit to take, any steps and proceedings in any other court of justice, whether in the same country, or in any foreign country." Story Eq. Jur. §§ 899, 900. In Phelps v. McDonald, 99 U. S. 298, 308, Mr. Justice Swayne uses this language: "Where the necessary parties are before a court of equity, it is immaterial that the res of the controversy, whether it be real or personal property, is beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the tribunal. It has the power to compel the defendant to do all things necessary, according to the lex loci rei sita, which he could do voluntarily, to give full effect to the decree against him. Without regard to the situation of the subject matter, such courts consider the equities between the parties, and decree in personam according to those equities, and enforce obedience to their decrees by process in personam." Such is undoubtedly the result of the clear weight of authority, and the rule has been often applied by the courts of the domicil against the attempts of some of its citizens to defeat the operation of its laws to the wrong and injury of others. Thus it was held by the Supreme Court of Ohio in Snook v. Snetzer, 25 Ohio St. 516, that where the statutes of that State exempted the earnings for personal service of a debtor, who was the head of a family and a citizen of the State, the Opinion of the Court. Ohio courts had authority to restrain a citizen of the county in which the equity action was commenced, from proceeding in another State to attach the earnings of such head of a family, with a view to evade the exemption laws of Ohio, and to prevent him from availing himself of the benefit of such law. To the same effect is Keyser v. Rice, 47 Maryland, 203. The Court of Appeals of Maryland declared the power of the State to compel its own citizens to respect its laws, even beyond its own territorial limits, to be supported by the great preponderance of precedent and authority; and sustained an injunction to restrain the further prosecution in another State of an attachment, by which the defendant sought to recover wages due the complainant in Maryland and there exempt from attachment. So in Burlington and Missouri Railroad v. Thompson, 31 Kansas, 180, though it was held that a foreign corporation doing business in Kansas might be garnisheed for a debt due to a non-resident employé, contracted outside of the State, and exempt from garnishment in the State where the defendant and garnishee resided, yet it was conceded by Judge Brewer, in delivering the opinion, "that in the courts of a State any citizen of that State may be enjoined from resorting to the courts of any other State for the purpose of evading the exemption laws of his own State;" and this was so decided in Zimmerman v. Franke, 34 Kansas, 650. In Wilson v. Joseph, 107 Indiana, 490, the Supreme Court of Indiana ruled that an injunction would lie to restrain a resident of Indiana from prosecuting an attachment proceeding against another resident in the courts of another State, in violation of a statute which made it an offence to send a claim against a debtor out of the State for collection, in order to evade the exemption law. And see Chaffee v. Quidnick Company, 13 R. I. 442, 449; Great Falls Manufacturing Co. v. Worster, 23 N. H. (3 Foster) 462; Pickett v. Ferguson, 45 Arkansas, 177. The rule is not otherwise in New York. It is true that in Mead v. Merritt, 2 Paige, 402, 404, the chancellor said: "I am not aware that any court of equity in the Union has deliberately decided that it will exercise the power, by process of in Opinion of the Court. junction, of restraining proceedings which have been previously commenced in the courts of another State." And the reason urged against the exercise of the power was that if the courts of one State should see fit to enjoin proceedings in another, the latter might retaliate in like manner in enjoining proceedings in the first, and thus give rise to an endless conflict of jurisdiction. But this reasoning has not commended itself to the judicial mind, for the injunction is not directed to the courts of the other State, but simply to the parties litigant, and although the power should be exercised with care, and with a just regard to the comity which ought to prevail among coördinate sovereignties, yet its existence cannot at this day be denied. In Vail v. Knapp, 49 Barb. 299, 305, an injunction was continued against citizens of New York, plaintiffs in attachment suits in Vermont, upon the ground that they were proceeding in Vermont in evasion of the laws of New York; and the court points out that, though as a general rule the courts of New York decline to interfere by injunction to restrain its citizens from proceeding in an action which has been commenced in a sister State, citing Mead v. Merritt, 2 Paige, 402; Burgess v. Smith, 2 Barb. Ch. 276, and other cases, yet "there are exceptions to this rule, and when a case is presented, fairly constituting such exception, extreme delicacy should not. deter the court from controlling the conduct of a party within its jurisdiction to prevent oppression or fraud. No rule of comity or policy forbids it." The same result was announced in Dinsmore v. Neresheimer, 32 Hun, 204, where the Supreme Court of New York held that an express company could maintain an action in New York to restrain the defendant, a resident of the State of New York, from prosecuting actions against the company in the District of Columbia, brought to avoid a decision of the Court of Appeals of New York, differing from the rule upon the same subject in the District of Columbia. In Erie Railway Co. v. Ramsey, 45 N. Y. 637, the Court of Appeals, speaking through Folger, J., treats the general ques tion as not admitting of doubt. |