Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/557

542 FKCBBAL BSPOBIES. �enacted statutes autliorizing and pxoviding for the removal of such cases front state to federal courts, which statutes haye been uniformly recognized as valid and enforced by the courts. But no one contends that the federal courts can be authorized to divest a state court of its iurisdiction, once regularly acquired, of a suit between citizens of the same state, unless it involves title to lands claimed to have been acquired from different states, or affeots ambassadors, ministers, or consuls, or is a case arising under the constitution or a law of the United States. Any statute professing to authorize such a transfer of such suit would be an encroachment upon the reserved rights of the state, in cbnflict with the national constitution, and void. And yet this is, in eliect, the prinoiple contended for in this case. It is true, the plaintiff and defendant were .citizens of different states when the suit was begun, and it is clearthat as long as this diversity of citizenship continued the suit was removable under said act; and had defendant avalled himself of his right to remove it in time, the jurisdiction of this court could not have been divested or its efiSciency impaired by any subsequent action of the plaintiff. But defendant took no steps for its removal until after the plaintiff became a citizen of Ohio. We think his application for the removal came too late. The act of 1875 is not susceptible of the construction contended for by defendant. If it was so expressly provided upon its face, it would, to that estent, exceed the constitutional authority of the legislative department, and would, therefore, be void. �The case wUl be remanded and judgment entered against defendant for the costs of this court. ���In re Pitts, Bankrupt. �(District Court, 8. D. New York. November 18, 1881.) �1. Ceeditors' Bill — Pbaudtilbnt Judgmbnt and Tkansfeh — Rev. St. } 5057— Assignee — Injunction Dissolvbd. �Judgment creditors, after the return of execution unsatisfied, on filing a bill to reach property of the debtor conveyed by a fraudulent transfer, or a flctitious judgment and sale on execution thereon, acquire an equitable lien on all the property f raudulently transferred, as against the parties to the suit ; but this lien, before the appointment of a reoeiver, will not prevail as against the levy of a subsequent execution on such of the property as is subject to levy, nor against an assignee in bankruptcy who stands in a similar situation. �Buch a suit having been commenced before proceedings in bankruptcy, and a stay of that suit having been afterwiirds procured in bankruptcy, and the assignee having knowledge of all the f acts more than three y cars ago, and f ailing ��� �