Page:United States Reports, Volume 257.djvu/107

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
26
OCTOBER TERM, 1921.
Opinion of the Court.
257 U.S.

than the place in a sale of personalty. The case of Bornemann v. Norris, 47 Fed. 438, was also a sale of real estate, and, moreover, was a direct proceeding to quash.

Nor do we think that the quoted language of the court speaking through Mr. Justice Bradley in Amy v. Watertown, 130 U. S. 301, is in conflict with our view of the effect of these conformity sections. The question in that case was whether when the state statute provided that process could be served on a city, only by leaving the summons with the Mayor, and there was no Mayor, the the federal court could order service to be made on some one else. The court held that, under § 914, the United States courts were limited to the method of service prescribed by the state statute. In adopting a state statute as a guide to the conduct of the business of a United States court and its officers, service on a state municipal corporation specified by a state statute is a very different matter from the fixing of the place for performing the functions of the United States court and its officers. The corporation is completely the creature of a State, and it is usually within the function of the creator to say how the creature shall be brought before judicial tribunals. It was with reference to such a matter that Mr. Justice Bradley said that the statute of 1872 was peremptory, and federal courts must conform to the practice of state courts.

For the reasons given, we hold that the sale of the 250 shares of stock to the Pacific Improvement Company vested a good title.

The decree of the Supreme Court is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed.