Opinion of the Court.

in positive language provide that, if the assignment is collusive and for the purpose of enabling the assignee to sue in the courts of the United States for the benefit of the assignor, when the assignor himself could not bring the action, the court shall not proceed in the case. In this respect it goes further than the rulings of the courts under the act of 1789. Under its provisions the holders of promissory notes or of foreign or domestic bills of exchange, who are citizens of a State in which the decisions of the courts have been adverse to their interests, cannot by collusive transfers to citizens of other States create a case apparently cognizable in the courts of the United States, and have it prosecuted by their assignees in those tribunals for their benefit, in the hope of securing an adjudication in that jurisdiction more favorable to their interests. The courts of the United States were not created under the Constitution for any such purpose. Except in certain specified cases they have no jurisdiction of controversies between citizens of the same State.

We are clearly of opinion that this case falls within the prohibitions of the statute. The bonds to which the coupons now in suit were attached were all bought as early as 1871 or 1872 by citizens of the State of Maine, who held and owned the bonds themselves when this suit was brought. Their purchases. were made while a suit was pending in the courts of the State to test the validity of the bonds. On the 27th of August, 1878, the highest court of the State decided in effect that the bonds were inoperative and void, for want of constitutional power in the village corporation to issue them. Almost two years after this decision these coupons, to the amount of $7,922, were collected from various holders of bonds, all residents of the village of Farmington and citizens of Maine, and transferred, separate from the bonds, to the present plaintiff, a citizen of Massachusetts, under an arrangement by which the plaintiff gave to the agent of the holders of the coupons his non-negotiable promissory note for $500, payable in two years from date, with interest, and agreed, "as a further consideration for said coupons," that if he succeeded in collecting the full amount thereof he would pay the agent, as soon as the money was got from the corporation, fifty per cent. of the net

VOL. CXIV-10

Opinion of the Court.

amount collected above the $500. This suit, begun July 1, 1880, in the name of the plaintiff, is the result of that arrangement. It is a suit for the benefit of the owners of the bonds. They are to receive from the plaintiff one-half of the net proceeds of the case they have created by their transfer of the coupons gathered together for that purpose. The suit is their own in reality, though they have agreed that the plaintiff may retain one-half of what he collects for the use of his name and his trouble in collecting. It is true the transaction is called a purchase in the papers that were executed, and that the plain tiff gave his note for $500, but the time for payment was put off for two years, when it was, no doubt, supposed the result of the suit would be known. No money was paid, and as the note was not negotiable, it is clear the parties intended to keep the control of the whole matter in their own hands, so that if the plaintiff failed to recover the money he could be released from his promise to pay. In the language of Mr. Justice I.eld, speaking for the court in Detroit v. Dean, 106 U. S. 537, 541, applied to the facts of this case, the transfer of the coupons was "a mere contrivance, a pretence, the result of a collusive arrangement to create" in favor of this plaintiff "a fictitious ground of federal jurisdiction," so as to get a re-examination in that jurisdiction of the question decided adversely to the owners of the coupons by the highest judicial tribunal of the State. Hawes v. Oakland, 104 U. S. 450, 459; Hayden v. Manning, 106 U. S. 586; Bernards Township v. Stebbins, 109 U. S. 341.

We, therefore, say, in answer to the first question certified, that the plaintiff cannot maintain the action in the Circuit Court upon the coupons declared upon.

The judgment of the Circuit Court is reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to dismiss the suit for want of jurisdiction and without prejudice.

Opinion of the Court.

EX PARTE HUGHES.

ORIGINAL.

Argued March 31, 1885.-Decided April 6, 1885.

On a petition for a writ of mandamus to a circuit judge directing him to pay over to the petitioner a sum of money alleged to have been paid into court for the petitiouer, and to be absolutely and unconditionally his property, and also alleged to be held in court because the judge refused to sign an order for its payment to petitioner, a rule to show cause was issued; and a return thereto being made, showing that it had not been adjudged that the money belonged to petitioner but that the litigation was still pending; Held, That the petitioner was not entitled to the writ.

Application for a writ of mandamus. The facts which make the case are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. John H. Mitchell for petitioner.

Mr. J. N. Dolph opposing.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.. This is an application for a writ of mandamus requiring Matthew P. Deady, judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of Oregon, to "forthwith sign and execute, by signing or countersigning any and all such orders, matters and things as may be requisite or necessary to enable your petitioner (Ellis G. Hughes, an attorney-at-law practising in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States for such district) to withdraw from the depositary of said court the sum of five hundred dollars belonging to him." The petition for the writ, which is sworn to by the petitioner, states that on and prior to May 3, 1882, there was pending in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Oregon a suit in equity for the foreclosure of a mortgage in which William Reid, manager, was plaintiff, and H. McCallister and W. B. McCallister, defendants, and that the plaintiff therein "recovered in said suit a certain decree as against the defendants and a certain order of sale, wherein and whereby it

Opinion of the Court.

was ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the defendants should pay to the plaintiff a certain sum of money, and interest as therein specified, and also the costs and disbursements in the suit to be taxed, 'including ten per cent. on the full amount due from the defendants to the complainant, as an attorney's fee to the attorney of the complainant,' and that in default of such payment being made certain lands in said decree and order of sale set out and described be sold."

The petition further states, "that your petitioner, as une attorney of the plaintiff, by express agreement and by the express terms and conditions of said decree and order of sale, was the absolute and unconditional owner of the attorney's fee recovered therein and thereby as costs of the suit." It is then stated that a sale of the mortgaged property was made under the decree, and "the amount due your petitioner under said decree and order of sale, as and for his attorney's fee, having been regularly ascertained and determined, the said purchaser at said sale paid to the clerk of the Circuit Court as and for and in payment of the claim of your petitioner for his attorney's fee, . the full amount so as aforesaid ascertained and determined to be due to your petitioner therefor." The petition then states that, upon the collection of the money, it was deposited in the registry of the court, and that, although demanded, the district judge holding the Circuit Court had refused to sign an order for its payment in full to him, but that the sum of $500, part thereof, was retained, although it was then in the depositary of the court and "absolutely and unconditionally the property of your petitioner."

No copies of the various orders and decrees on which the rights of the petitioner depend were attached to the petition; but upon the positive sworn statements of the petitioner as to their nature and effect, a rule was entered on the district judge to show cause why the writ asked for should not be issued. To this rule a return has been made from which it appears unmistakably that it has never been adjudged that the petitioner was the owner of the money in court. On the contrary, it does appear that, on the 4th of December, 1884, the petitioner asked

Syllabus.

that the money in court, being $1,039.42, be "paid to him by the clerk," and thereupon it was ordered "that there be paid to said Hughes (the petitioner) out of said funds the sum of $519.04," but the court declined to make any disposition of the rest of the fund until the plaintiff had notice of the application and could be heard thereon. The amount so ordered to be paid was afterwards received from the registry of the court by the petitioner. The application for the rest of the fund was subsequently heard, the plaintiff in the suit appearing to resist, and upon full consideration it was expressly adjudged by the court that the litigation in the case was not ended, and that "neither by the terms of the decree nor the right and justice of the case was he [petitioner] entitled to the same [the money] until he had earned it by prosecuting said suit to a final decree as to all the defendants therein." The application for the remainder of the money was consequently denied, and the fund was left " in the registry of the court to be disposed of or applied hereafter as the rights of the parties and justice of the case may require." Certainly upon this return the petitioner is not entitled to the writ he asks.

The rule heretofore granted is discharged with costs.

STEPHENSON v. BROOKLYN CROSS-TOWN RAIL ROAD COMPANY.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR

THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Argued March 11, 1885.-Decided March 23, 1885.

None of the separate elements of the devices described in the patent granted September 16, 1873, to John A. O'Haire and W. A. Jones, as assignees of John A. O'Haire for an improvement in operating car doors. were new; nor was the combination new; nor was there any patentable invention in the contrivance described in the patent.

The device described in the patent granted March 30, 1875, to appellant for ar