Opinion of the Court. ment had been recorded in Pennsylvania. A statute of that State provided that assignments of property situated there, made by a person not a resident therein, might be recorded in any county where the property was, and would take effect from its date, “provided that no bona fide purchaser, mortgagee, or creditor, having a lien thereon before the recording in the same county, and not having previous actual notice thereof, shall be affected or prejudiced." It was held that an injunction should not be granted against the New York creditors from prosecuting their attachment suits in Pennsylvania. The assignment, said the court, was a mere voluntary conveyance, and "did not operate upon the creditors of the assignor, nor place them under any obligations. It left them entirely free to act. They could utterly refuse to have anything to do with it, and retain their claims and enforce them in their own time, as best they could, against their debtor. The assignee became a trustee for such creditors of the assignor only as chose to accept him as such, and without their assent the assignment did not bring the creditors into any relation with the assignee, or with each other. The law did not take this insolvent's property for distribution among his creditors, but its distribution was his own act. Any one of his creditors could, notwithstanding the assignment, enforce his claim against any property of the assignor not conveyed by the assignment, without violating any rights or equities of the other creditors." The law of Pennsylvania was then referred to, and it was shown, as the fact was, that such an assignment was recognized in Pennsylvania, but that to give it effect before it had been recorded where the property was, would have been in contravention of the law of the State. Upon this ground the court distinguished Ockerman v. Cross, 54 N. Y. 29, where "it was held that a voluntary assignment by a debtor residing in Canada, valid by the laws of his domicil, and not invalidated by any law of this State, was valid here and operated to transfer the assignor's property situated here. That the decision would have been different if the assignment had been in contravention of our laws or policy, is fully recognized in the opinion of the court." And so also the court dis Opinion of the Court. tinguished the case of Bagby v. Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad Co., 86 Penn. St. 291. There a receiver had been appointed in the State of Virginia of the property of the railroad company, and at the time of such appointment there was due to it, from a debtor in Pennsylvania, a certain sum of money which the receiver claimed. But after his appointment a creditor residing in Virginia went to the State of Pennsylvania and there commenced suit against the railroad company and attached the debt due it, and it was held that the receiver was entitled to the debt. And the Court of Appeals said: "The transfer of the title to the receiver was not in contravention of any law of Pennsylvania, and hence it was held that as against a citizen of Virginia, bound by its laws, the appointment of a receiver, binding upon him there, would, by comity, be held to be binding upon him in Pennsylvania." In the case in hand, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts thought it proper to grant the injunction, since it was a case of the taking by the law of the insolvent's property for distribution among his creditors, who, so far as resident in the State of Massachusetts, were brought into relations with the assignee and with each other, which precluded them from enforcing their claim against the property of the assignor conveyed by the assignment, and rendered the effort to do so a violation of the rights and equities of the other creditors, and an absolute infraction of the law of their own domicil. Nor was there any law or policy of the State of New York contravened by the insolvent proceedings in question, or in itself inimical to the title of the assignees. In Lawrence v. Batcheller, 131 Mass. 504, the defendant, Batcheller, a citizen of Massachusetts, had brought suits by attachment in other States against one Paige, also a citizen of Massachusetts, indebted to defendant, and in embarrassed circumstances, and garnisheed and ultimately collected various amounts due to Paige. Paige subsequently went into insolvency, and his assignees sued Batcheller at law to recover the money. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the assignees could not recover because, as the attachments were made prior to the time when the assignment in insolvency took 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 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: Of "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. 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 |