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Opinion of the Court.

effect, and, having been made in other States, were not dissolved by the proceedings in insolvency, and were valid by the laws of the States where they were instituted, they prevailed over the insolvency assignment, the statutes of Massachusetts not making a title so acquired void or voidable at the election of the assignees in insolvency. And the court, holding that courts of law will not always afford a remedy in damages for all wrongs which courts of equity might prevent, said: "Courts of equity recognize and enforce rights which courts of law do not recognize at all; and it is often on this ground that defendants in equity are enjoined from prosecuting actions at law.” The distinction between the action as brought and Dehon v. Foster was treated as obvious.

What has been said is in harmony with the rule announced in Green v. Van Buskirk, 5 Wall. 307; S. C. 7 Wall. 139. In that case, Bates, who lived in New York, executed and delivered to Van Buskirk, who lived in the same State, a chattel mortgage on certain iron safes which were then in the city of Chicago. Two days after this, Green, who was also a citizen of New York, being ignorant of the existence of the mortgage, sued out a writ of attachment in the courts of Illinois, levied on the safes, and subsequently had them sold in satisfaction of the judgment obtained in the attachment suit. There was no appearance or contest in this attachment suit, and Van Buskirk was not a party to it, although he could have made himself such party and contested the right of Green to levy on the safes, being expressly authorized by the laws of Illinois so to do. It was conceded that by the law of Illinois mortgages of personal property, until acknowledged and recorded, were void as against third persons. Subsequently Van Buskirk sued Green in New York for the value of the safes mortgaged to him by Bates, of which Green had thus received the proceeds. The courts of New York gave judgment in favor of Van Buskirk, holding that the law of New York was to govern and not the law of Illinois, although the property was situated in the latter State, and that the title passed to Van Buskirk by the execution of the mortgage. The cause was then brought to this court and first considered upon a motion to

Opinion of the Court.

dismiss for want of jurisdiction. Mr. Justice Miller delivered the opinion overruling that motion. The cause then came on to be heard upon the merits, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York was reversed. This court held that as, by the laws of Illinois, an attachment on personal property would take precedence of an unrecorded mortgage, executed in another State where recording was not necessary, the judgment in attachment would be binding though the owner of the chattels, the attaching creditor and the mortgage creditor might all be residents of such other State; and Mr. Justice Davis, speaking for the court, said:

"It should be borne in mind, in the discussion of this case, that the record in the attachment suit was not used as the foundation of an action, but for purposes of defence. Of course, Green could not sue Bates on it, because the court had no jurisdiction of his person; nor could it operate on any other property belonging to Bates than that which was attached. But as, by the law of Illinois, Bates was the owner of the iron safes when the writ of attachment was levied, and as Green could and did lawfully attach them to satisfy his debt in a court which had jurisdiction to render the judgment, and as the safes were lawfully sold to satisfy that judgment, it follows that when thus sold the right of property in them was changed, and the title to them became vested in the purchasers at the sale. And as the effect of the levy, judgment and sale is to protect Green if sued in the courts of Illinois, and these proceedings are produced for his own justification, it ought to require no argument to show that when sued in the court of another State for the same transaction, and he justifies in the same manner, that he is also protected. Any other rule would destroy all safety in derivative titles, and deny to a State the power to regulate the transfer of personal property within its limits, and to subject such property to legal proceedings." 7 Wall. 148.

It will be perceived that it was manifestly inadmissible to hold that after Van Buskirk had permitted Green to go to judgment in a proceeding in rem, which appropriated the property as belonging to Bates, he could then get judgment

Dissenting Opinion: Miller, Field, Harlan, JJ.

against Green for the conversion of what had so been adjudged to him, an adjudication which Van Buskirk had voluntarily declined to litigate in the proper forum, and had not sought in his own State to prevent. It was a contest between two individuals claiming the same property, and that property capable of an actual situs, and actually situated in Illinois. The attachment was not only levied in accordance with the laws of Illinois, but the laws of that State affirmatively invalidated the instrument under which Van Buskirk claimed. Clearly, then, the law of the domicil of Van Buskirk, Green and Bates could not overcome such registry and other positive laws of Illinois as were distinctively coercive. Hervey v. Rhode Island Locomotive Works, 93 U. S. 664; Walworth v. Harris, 129 U. S. 355.

In the case at bar, the attachment suits have not gone to judgment, and the assignees in insolvency have proceeded with due diligence as against these creditors, citizens of Massachusetts, who are seeking to evade the laws of their own State; nor is there anything in the law or policy of New York opposed to the law or policy of Massachusetts in the premises.

We find no infringement of the Constitution in the rendition of the decree, and it is accordingly

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE MILLER, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE FIELD and MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.

I dissent from the judgment and opinion of the court in this case. I am of opinion that the proceedings in the state court of New York, whether they be considered as the bona fide action of Fayerweather for his own benefit, or as merely representing the interests of Butler, Hayden & Co., were efficient in establishing a lien on the indebtedness of Aaron Claflin & Co., of New York, which by the laws of that State was superior to any right then held, or which could be acquired afterwards by the assignees in insolvency of Daniel C. Bird.

Indeed, it is not questioned in the very learned opinion of the court in this case that if Butler, Hayden & Co. had been permitted to go on with their proceeding in New York, they

Dissenting Opinion: Miller, Field, Harlan, JJ.

would have secured an order in the court in which the proceedings were pending, that the garnishees, Aaron Claflin & Co., should pay the amount of their indebtedness to the plaintiff in that action. But the whole argument of the court is that, because Butler, Hayden & Co. were citizens of Massachusetts, they were under some superior obligation to the law of Massachusetts, and to be governed by the rights that law conferred, which prevented them from availing themselves of the law of New York that gave them this superior right.

I do not deny the general principle that a party found within the jurisdiction of a court and subject to its process may be restrained and enjoined from doing certain things in some other jurisdiction because the thing which he might attempt to do is opposed to the principles of equity or to the law of the place where he is found. And such might be the law in this case, but for the provision of the Constitution of the United States and the act of Congress, both of which are recited in the opinion of the court, which require that the "records and judicial proceedings of a State authenticated as aforesaid shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court in the United States as they would have by law or usage in the courts of the State from whence such records are or shall be taken." The record introduced from the court of New York in this case had the effect in that State to give Butler, Hayden & Co. a lien on the indebtedness of Aaron Claflin & Co., to their creditor, Bird, which in that court would have ripened into a judgment and been enforced. That was the faith and credit which the laws of New York gave to that proceeding. It initiated a right. It established a lien, and there was no power in the courts of Massachusetts to interrupt the course of these proceedings to the final result. That is to say, there was no power to do this directly. Had it the right to do it by seizing the persons of Butler, Hayden & Co. in Massachusetts, and compelling them there to forego the advantage which they had secured in the state courts of New York? When, therefore, Butler, Hayden & Co. were sued in equity in the courts of Massachusetts, and there was produced the record of these proceedings in the court of New York, the

Dissenting Opinion: Miller, Field, Harlan, JJ.

question was presented to the courts of Massachusetts what effect they would give to those proceedings. Now they did not give the effect which the laws of New York gave to them. Neither the law nor the usage in the courts of New York admitted of such proceeding as that taken in the courts of Massachusetts.

If there was any error in proceedings in the court of New York, that error was subject to correction in due course of law in courts of justice of the State of New York, and Butler, Hayden & Co. had a right to insist on the validity of their proceedings being tested by the courts, and governed by the laws of the State of New York, and not by those of Massachusetts.

It is no answer to this to say that Butler, Hayden & Co. were citizens of Massachusetts and were found within its jurisdiction. The higher law of the Constitution of the United States places this restraint upon the courts of Massachusetts in dealing even with her own citizens, and if her citizens have obtained rights in the courts of New York which have become a part of the records and judicial proceedings of those courts, no matter how the law under which those rights are established may be opposed to the law of the State of Massachusetts, they are to be respected by the courts of Massachusetts because they are effectual over the parties and subject matter in New York, and because the Constitution of the United States and the act of Congress of May 26, 1790, assert the principle that the courts of Massachusetts must give full credit, by which is meant the same effect to the proceedings in New York which that State gives to them. The constitutional provision which makes this declaration is part of Article IV, and it is in immediate connection with its second section, which declares that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." The meaning of this is to prevent conflicts between courts of the different States, over the same matters, by establishing the rule that whatever is done or decided in one State shall be respected in every other State when properly proved before it. It is one feature of the general idea which is found all through the Constitution.

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