Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/863

BUOK V. PIEDMONT & AELINGTON LIFE INS. 00. 849 ���BuoK and others ». Piedmont & Arlington Life Ins. Co. and others. �(Circuit Court, E. D. Virginia, tiecemher 23, 1880.) �JurnsDicTioN OF Fedebai. Court — Bill Filbd vu State Oottrt — Sdit Kot AT Issue.— On November 30, 1880, the defendant corpora- tion, an insolvent life insurance company, doing business at Rich- mond. Va., and having policies distributed in many states of the nnion, by order of its board of directors, but without any previous authority from-its stockholders, conveyed ail its property to its vice- president in trust, for the beneflt of creditors, subject to certain con- ditions and preferences, duly set forth in the deed ereating said trust. �On December 3, 1880, the trustee set on foot a suit in the chancery court df Bichmond, askingthe aid of that court in the administration of his trust. �On the same day a resident crediter flled a bill in his own uame, in the same court, against the defendant company and the said trustee, and asked leave therein to subsequently make ail the directors and stockholders parties to the suit, when their names should be Iheresfter ascertained. This bill also asked for ail proper accounts and a receiver, and that ail the creditors might be ascertained, the fund collected and distributed, and the trust deed set aside ; and f urther asked for a Personal decree for the amount paid the company by the complain- ant, on the ground that the company had forfeited its contract by refusing to give the complainant a paid-up policy in exchange for hi» original policy. �On December 11, 1880, the complainants, non-resîdent creditors, exhibited their bill in this suit, to -which they made the company, the trustee, and the stockholders ail parties defendant, and asked, in the name of themselves and of ail creditors yi\xo might come in, that the trust deed should be set aside, the funds collected and distributed, a receiver appointed, and for ail the general and special relief usually asked for in creditors' bills. �A rule was thereupon made by this court, calling upon these de- fendants to show cause, December 20th, why a receiver should not be appointed. It further appeared, upon the return-day to this rule, that the bill of the trustee had never been filed in the state court ; that the cause had not proceeded to issue in either of the suits in that court; and that such court had not appointed a receiver, or taken custody of the efEects of the defendant company, or made any ordcr ■ by which it took cognizance or assumed jurisdiction of the contro- versy between the parties to the respective suits. Edd, under these circumstances, that the institution of the mere incipient steps of the two suits in the state court would not defeat the jurisdiction of thi* court. v.4,no.lO — 5e ����