A judgment in a circuit court of appeals upon the claim of an
intervenor, set up in a circuit court against the receiver of a
railroad appointed by that court in a suit for the foreclosure of a
mortgage upon the road, is a final judgment which cannot be
reviewed in this Court.
Motion to dismiss. The Mercantile Trust Company, a corporation
of New York, filed its bill in the Circuit Court of the United
States for the District of Kansas, June 8, 1888, against the
Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company, a corporation of
Kansas, for the foreclosure of certain mortgages and deeds of
trust, and George A. Eddy and H. C. Cross were thereupon appointed
receivers of the company, and took charge of its property, which
consisted, among other things, of a line of railroad running from
Hannibal, Missouri, to Parsons, Kansas, and to Fort Worth, Texas.
Ancillary proceedings were also had in the circuit courts of the
United States through whose jurisdiction the railway ran. On
October 11, 1890, Annie Letcher filed her intervening petition in
that cause in the Circuit Court of the United States for the
Northern
Page 156 U. S. 48
Division of the Eastern District of Missouri, at Hannibal,
claiming damages on account of the death of her husband, Harvey
Letcher, occasioned, as she averred, by the negligence of the
receivers, their agents, servants, and employees. The receivers
having filed their answer thereto, the matter was referred by the
court to a master in chancery to report conclusions thereon. A
hearing was had and a report made by the master May 18, 1891,
recommending a judgment for $5,000 in favor of the intervenor.
Exceptions were filed and overruled, and the Circuit Court at
Hannibal, on January 5, 1892, allowed the claim of the intervenor
and rendered judgment for $5,000 against the receivers and ordered
it
"paid unto the intervenor herein, or her solicitor of record, by
George A. Eddy and Harrison C. Cross, the receivers in this cause,
out of any money or funds in their hands applicable to that
purpose, or that the same be paid by the persons or corporations
who have succeeded to the possession of the property lately in the
custody of said receivers, who by the terms of the final decree or
previous orders in this cause are chargeable with the payment of
such claims."
An appeal from this decree was taken by the receivers to the
Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the decree
affirmed July 10, 1893.
Eddy v. Letcher, 57 F. 115.
Thereupon, an appeal was prayed and allowed to this Court, which
the intervenor moved to dismiss. The deaths of Eddy and Cross
having been suggested, the appearance of Henry C. Rouse, appointed
receiver in their place, was entered.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the facts in the
foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
By section six of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, the
judgments or decrees of the circuit courts of appeals are made
final
"in all cases in which the jurisdiction is dependent
Page 156 U. S. 49
entirely upon the opposite parties to the suit or controversy
being aliens and citizens of the United States or citizens of
different states."
And it is also provided that
"in all cases not hereinbefore in this section made final, there
shall be of right an appeal or writ of error or review of the case
by the Supreme Court of the United States where the matter in
controversy shall exceed one thousand dollars."
26 Stat. 826, 828.
If the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit was final under the sixth section, then this appeal must be
dismissed, and in order to maintain that the decision was not
final, it must appear that the jurisdiction of the circuit court
was not dependent entirely upon the opposite parties' being
citizens of different states. The jurisdiction of the circuit court
was invoked by the filing of the bill, upon which it appeared that
the suit was one of which cognizance could properly be taken on the
ground of diverse citizenship, and it did not appear therefrom that
jurisdiction was rested or could be asserted on any other ground.
But it is insisted that appellee's cause of action arose long after
the circuit court had taken jurisdiction and the receivers had been
appointed, and that her suit by intervention was one arising under
the Constitution and laws of the United States, because the cause
of action was asserted against the receivers as officers of the
United States court, and arose, as alleged, by reason of negligence
on their part in the course of their receivership. It is plain,
however, that the intervention was entertained as belonging to that
class of proceedings recognized as allowable where property sought
to be charged is
in custodia legis, and not on any other
ground. Although appellee's claim was purely a legal one, she did
not bring an action at law, but was permitted to intervene by
petition as in the assertion of a claim upon the property of fund
being administered by the court. It is well settled that where
property is in the actual possession of a court, this draws to it
the right to decide upon conflicting claims to its ultimate
possession and control,
Minnesota Co. v. St. Paul
Co., 2 Wall. 609;
Morgan's Co. v. Texas Central
Railway, 137 U. S. 171,
137 U. S. 201,
and that where assets are in the course of administration, all
persons entitled
Page 156 U. S. 50
to participate may come in, under the jurisdiction acquired
between the original parties, by ancillary or supplemental
proceedings, even though jurisdiction would be lacking if such
proceedings had been originally and independently prosecuted.
Stewart v. Dunham, 115 U. S. 61,
115 U. S. 64;
Richmond v. Irons, 121 U. S. 27,
121 U. S. 52.
And since, where jurisdiction would not obtain in an independent
suit, an intervening proceeding may nevertheless be maintained as
ancillary and supplemental under jurisdiction already subsisting,
such proceeding is to be regarded in that aspect even in cases
where the circuit court might have had jurisdiction of an
independent action. Here, as we have said, the jurisdiction of the
circuit court was invoked in the first instance by the filing of
the bill, and it was under that jurisdiction that appellee
intervened in the case, and that jurisdiction depended entirely
upon diverse citizenship. We think the use of the words "suit or
controversy" in the sixth section does not affect the conclusion.
If the word "controversy" added anything to the comprehensiveness
of the section, the fact remains that the exercise of the power of
disposition over this intervention, whether styled "suit" or
"controversy," was the exercise of power invoked at the institution
of the main suit, and it it to that point of time that the inquiry
as to jurisdiction must necessarily be referred.
Colorado
Central Mining Co. v. Turck, 150 U. S. 138. Nor
can the conclusion be otherwise because separate appeals may be
allowed on such interventions. Decrees upon controversies separable
from the main suit may indeed be separately reviewed, but the
jurisdiction of the circuit court over such controversies is not
therefore to be ascribed to grounds independent of jurisdiction in
the main suit. We are unable to attribute to Congress the intention
of allowing final orders on every incidental controversy, involving
over one thousand dollars to be brought to this Court for review
while denying such review of the principal decree, although
involving millions.
Tested by these principles, the decree of the circuit court of
appeals was final, and the motion to dismiss must be sustained.
Appeal dismissed.
