Statement of the Case.

Frederick A. Pike, a citizen of Maine, and William C. N. Swift, a citizen of Massachusetts, to recover two certain nonnegotiable promissory notes made by Swift, held by Pike, and alleged by Gregory to be his property. This suit was afterwards removed on Gregory's petition to the Circuit Court on the sole ground of the diverse citizenship of the parties. Pending the suit the notes were collected, and the proceeds transferred to the registry in the cause. On the petition of Swift and John C. Kemp Van Ee, who claimed to be interested in the notes, Van Ee was made a party defendant by order of court, against Gregory's objection, and filed a crossbill. Butterfield was made a defendant on the application of himself and Swift, and filed a cross-bill, and Talbot, attorney for Pike and his estate, filed a petition for attorney's fees. Pike died, and his executrix, Mary H. Pike, was made a party. The Circuit Court dismissed the cross-bill of Butterfield and decreed payments out of the fund in favor of Mrs. Pike and Van Ee. From this decree separate appeals were taken, by Gregory as against Mrs. Pike, and as against Van Ee; by Talbot; and by Butterfield, to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and went to judgment there. The opinion of that court gives a clear idea of a somewhat confused record. 67 Fed. Rep. 687. The Court of Appeals concurred with the disposition of the case by the Circuit Court as to Mrs. Pike and Butterfield, but awarded relief to Talbot; and held that Van Ee was improperly made a party defendant, that his cross-bill was unauthorized and should be dismissed, but that it could be properly treated as an intervening petition, and, so treating it, that he was entitled thereon to the relief accorded by the Circuit Court. The case was remanded to the Circuit Court with directions to enter a final decree, modifying the original decree in the particulars pointed out. From the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals separate appeals to this court were prayed by Gregory and allowed, as against Van Ee, Mary H. Pike, and Talbot, which appeals were separately docketed here as Nos. 601, 602, and 603. The appeals in Nos. 602 and-603, those against Mrs. Pike and Talbot, were dismissed November 25, and a motion to dismiss the appeal against Van Ee, No. 601, is now made.

Opinion of the Court.

Mr. Russell Gray for the motion.

Mr. E. J. Phelps and Mr. F. A. Brooks opposing.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of court.

The jurisdiction of the Circuit Court in the suit of Gregory against Pike and Swift rested on the fact that the controversy therein was between citizens of different States, and this was the sole ground on which Gregory removed the cause from the state court to the Circuit Court. The fund was in the Circuit Court because realized out of and substituted for the subject of contention in that suit, and Van Ee recovered on his intervening petition what he claimed to be his share of that fund.

In Rouse v. Letcher, 156 U. S. 47, we held that if the decree of a Circuit Court of Appeals is final under the sixth section of the judiciary act of March 3, 1891, a decree upon an intervention in the same suit must be regarded as equally so because the intervention is entertained in virtue of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court already subsisting. It was pointed out that where property is in the actual possession of the Circuit Court, this draws to it the right to decide upon conflicting claims for its ultimate possession and control, and that where assets are in the course of administration all persons entitled to participate may come in under the jurisdiction acquired between the original parties, by ancillary or supplemental proceedings, even though jurisdiction in the Circuit Court would be lacking if such proceedings had been independently prosecuted; that the exercise of the power of disposition by a Circuit Court of the United States over such an intervention is the exercise of power invoked at the institution of the main suit; and that it is to that point of time that the inquiry as to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court must necessarily be referred. Therefore, that, if the decree in the main suit were final, decrees in accessory and subordinate proceedings would be also final, and appeals therefrom could not be sustained.

Syllabus.

The Circuit Courts of the United States have cognizance of suits as provided by the acts of Congress, and when their jurisdiction as Federal courts has attached, they possess and exercise all the powers of courts of superior general jurisdiction. Accordingly they entertain and dispose of interventions and the like on familiar and recognized principles of general law and practice, but the ground on which their jurisdiction as courts of the United States rests is to be found in the statutes, and to that source must always be attributed. Manifestly, the decree in the main suit cannot be revised through an appeal from a decree on ancillary or supplemental proceedings, thus accomplishing indirectly what could not be done directly. And even if the decree on such proceedings may be in itself independent of the controversy between the original parties, yet if the proceedings are entertained in the Circuit Court because of its possession of the subject of the ancillary or supplemental application, the disposition of the latter must partake of the finality of the main decree, and cannot be brought here on the theory that the Circuit Court exercised jurisdiction independently of the ground of jurisdiction which was originally invoked as giving cognizance to that court as a court of the United States.

Appeal dismissed.

CHEMICAL BANK v. CITY BANK OF PORTAGE.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.

No. 786. Submitted January 7, 1896. Decided January 27, 1896.

By authority of the directors of a national bank in Chicago, which had acquired some of its own stock, the individual note of its cashier, secured by a pledge of that stock was, through a broker in Portage, sold to a bank there. The note not being paid at maturity the Portage Bank sued the Chicago Bank in assumpsit, declaring specially on the note, which it alleged was made by the bank in the cashier's name, and also setting out the common counts. The bank set up that the purchase of its own stock was illegal and that money borrowed to pay a debt con

Statement of the Case.

tracted for that purpose was equally forbidden by Rev. Stat. § 5201. The trial court was requested by the Chicago Bank to rule several propositions of law, and declined to do so. Judgment was then entered for the Portage Bank. The Supreme Court of the State of Illinois held that the Portage Bank was entitled to recover under the common counts, and that it was not necessary to consider whether the trial court had ruled correctly on the propositions of law submitted to it. Held, that that court, in rendering such judgment, denied no title, right, privilege, or immunity specially set up or claimed under the laws of the United States, and that the writ of error must be dismissed.

THIS was an action of assumpsit brought by the City Bank of Portage against the Chemical National Bank of Chicago, in the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois. The declaration contained a special count upon a note signed by C. E. Braden, which it was alleged was made by defendant in that name; and the common counts. The defendant pleaded the general issue and a plea denying the execution of the note described in the special count. A jury was waived and the cause submitted to the court for trial.

Under the practice act of Illinois, where a trial is by the court, either party may "submit to the court written propositions to be held as law in the decision of the case, upon which the court shall write 'refused' or 'held,' as he shall be of opinion is the law, or modify the same, to which either party may except as to other opinions of the court." Rev. Stat. Ill. c. 110, § 42; 2 Starr & Curt. 1808.

Defendant requested the court to hold as law in the decision of the case the eight propositions given in the margin.'

11. If the court finds from the evidence that some of the directors of the Chemical National Bank of Chicago were desirous of purchasing shares of the capital stock of said bank for themselves, individually; that in pursuance of such desire they instructed the president of said bank to purchase such an amount of said shares of stock not exceeding $100,000 par value, as might be offered at par, stating to him that they would take the stock so purchased at different times as their money came in; that in pursuance of such instruction the president of said bank caused a broker to purchase fifty shares of said capital stock, and in payment for said stock one Hopkins, assistant cashier of said bank, gave to said broker his individual note for the purchase price of said stock, payable on demand; that thereafter, payment of said note being demanded of said Hopkins, the pres

Statement of the Case.

Of these the court refused to hold propositions numbered one, two, three, four, six, and eight, and also proposition numbered six "if it appears that the bank, its officers knowing the facts, used the money;" and defendant excepted. The court held propositions numbered five and seven. The issues were found in favor of plaintiff, and judgment entered on the finding, and, the case having been taken to the Appellate Court for the first district of Illinois, the judgment of the Superior Court was affirmed. 55 Ill. App. 251. And this judgment of the Appellate Court was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State on appeal. 156 Illinois, 149. Thereupon a writ of error from this court was sued out.

There was evidence tending to show that in 1893 the Chemical National Bank had taken some of its own stock in pay

ident and cashier of said bank paid said note out of the moneys of said bank, and thereupon it was arranged by and between the president, the cashier, and the assistant cashier, that the cashier, Braden, should execute his individual note for $5000 to a broker; that fifty shares of said stock so purchased should be transferred upon the books of the bank to said Braden, and attached to said note to be given to said broker as collateral security; that said broker should procure said note to be discounted, and that the money realized by discounting said note should be paid into the moneys of the bank to replace the money of the bank used in paying the Hopkins note, and that in pursuance of such arrangement said Braden gave the note in controversy, and the same was discounted and the proceeds were deposited with the moneys of the Chemical National Bank of Chicago, then the court should find that said note was the individual note of said Braden, and not the note of the defendant, and should find the issues in favor of the defendant.

2. If the court believes the testimony given by J. O. Curry in this case to be true and to be a correct statement of the circumstances connected with the execution by Braden of the note sued on, then the court must find the issues joined in favor of the defendant.

3. Although the court may believe the testimony of Braden to be true, yet his testimony with all inferences that may be justifiably drawn therefrom in favor of the plaintiff does not justify a finding in favor of the plaintiff.

4. The fact that the money realized upon the note in suit was received by the Chemical National Bank of Chicago does not make said Chemical National Bank of Chicago liable upon said note; and this is true notwithstanding it was agreed by and between Curry, Braden, and Hopkins that the note should be treated as a note of the Chemical National Bank of Chicago and paid by it.