Federal Jurisdiction in Equity. maintain bill 12toHow. redeem certain 'Russell v.their Southard, (U. S.) from 139, 147. mortgages, because they had not made a tender of the money due thereunder." "To this," said the learned justice, "the true answer is that the regulation respects suits in the State court only, under that par ticular statute, and is wholly inapplicable to the general equity jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, which can in no man ner be limited or controlled by State legisla tion."1 In a case coming into the Supreme Court of the United States from the United States Circuit Court in Kentucky, the court applied the rule of equity that a deed, absolute on its face, may be shown by parol evidence to have been intended as a mortgage merely. In the opinion of the court, written by Mr. Justice Curtis, the following language oc curs: " It is suggested that a different rule is held by the highest court of equity in Kentucky. If it were, with great respect forthat learned court, this court would not feel bound thereby. This being a suit in equity, and oral evidence being admitted or rejected, not by the mere force of any State statute, but upon the principles of general equity jurisprudence, this court must be governed by its own views of those princi ples." г A rule that allows a party, by parol evi dence, to show that a deed absolute on its face was intended as a mortgage, must be regarded as something more than a rule of evidence or of procedure merely, but as a rule of property. If this is true, the court here refused to follow a rule existing in a State upon which the security of titles to land rests. But this is a settled part of the doctrine. Except in the Krumseig case, already referred to, the writer finds no sug gestion in any of the Federal decisions that, in the exercise of their equity jurisdiction, the courts of the United States are bound to follow the rules of property existing in par1 Gordon r. Hobart, 2 Sum. (U. S.) 401, 403.
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ticular States, whether enacted by the legis lature or established by judicial decision. In another case, where the question of ju risdiction was the only question considered, the court, speaking through Mr. Justice Campbell, said : " In the organization of the courts of the United States, the remedies at law and in equity have been distinguished, and the jurisdiction in equity is confided to the circuit courts to be exercised uniformly through the United States, and does not re ceive any modification from the legislation of the States, or the practice of their courts having similar powers."1 Following the question down chronologi cally, we find that, in 1862, the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking through Mr. Justice Swayne, said: "The equity jurisdiction of the courts of the United States is derived from the constitution and the laws of the United States. Their powers and rules of decision are the same in all the States. Their practice is regulated by themselves, and by rules established by the Supreme Court. This court is invested by law with the authority to make such rules. In all these respects they are unaffected by State legislation." '2 Still later, the court, speaking through Mr. Justice Davis, said: "We have re peatedly held ' that the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States over controver sies between citizens of the different States cannot be impaired by the laws of the States which prescribe the modes of redress in their courts, or which regulate the distribution of their judicial power.'3 If legal remedies are sometimes modified to suit the changes in the laws of the States and the practice of their courts, it is not so with equity. The equity jurisdiction conferred on the Federal courts is the same that the High Court of 1 Green •'. Creighton, 23 How. (U. S.) go, 105. 2 Noonman v. Lee, 2 Black (U. S.) 499, 509. 3 Citing to this quotation, Hyde v. Stone, 20 How. (U. S.) 175; Suydam ». Broadnax, 14 Pet. (U. S.) 67; Union Bank v. Jolly, 18 How. (U. S.) 50?.
