Opinion of the Court. attorneys of Hancock, receiver. The plaintiff has applied to Hancock, receiver, for an examination of the books of the limited partnership, for the purpose of ascertaining what settlement, if any, Boies, Fay and Conkey had made with Graves, or what settlement Fay and Conkey had made with Boies; but Hancock refused such examination, and said that such refusal was in accordance with directions given him by Flower, Remy and Gregory, as his attorneys. The judgments so entered on confession are, or some one or more of them is or are, fictitious, and rendered for more than was due to the plaintiffs therein respectively; and this excess is alleged to exist in regard to twenty-two of the judgments, including the two in favor of Graves and those in favor of the First National Bank of Chicago, Shumway, The Bay State Sugar Refining Company, the First National Bank of Westboro', Massachusetts and Potter. Fay and Conkey, at the time the notes and warrants of attorney were made and the judgments were entered, knew that the limited partnership was insolvent; and they executed the notes and warrants, and confessed the judgments, with the intention of paying and securing to each of the persons in whose favor the notes and warrants were executed and the judgments were confessed a preference over any other creditors of the limited partnership. The confessions were unlawful acts, prohibited by the statute of Illinois, and the judgments, and all acts done in pursuance thereof, and all process issued thereon, and all acts done under such process, are void. None of the persons or firms in whose favor the notes were given knew of the execution of them until after judgment had been entered thereon, and all of the judgments were entered without the knowledge or consent of the persons mentioned as plaintiffs therein. None of the notes were made in the ordinary course of business, but they were all made with intent on the part of Fay and Conkey to carry out the said fraudulent scheme; and all of the judg ments were entered by Flower, Remy and Gregory, by direction of Fay and Conkey or of Fay. The property so taken on execution by the sheriff of Cook County, and the assets so transferred to the possession of Hancock, as receiver, consti VOL. CXXXII-37 Opinion of the Court. tute the whole of the assets of the limited partnership; and its bona fide debts amount to about $400,000. The bill waives answers on oath, and prays for a decree that the pretended transfer of the assets of the limited partnership to Fay and Conkey was fraudulent and void; that each of the judgments so entered on confession, the executions issued and the proceedings thereon, or on their return, and everything done under the judgments and executions, or in any suit based on any of the judgments, and every sale or transfer involving any of them, be declared void; that it be decreed that all of the goods levied upon under the executions, and the assets taken possession of by Hancock as receiver, are the property of the limited partnership, and as such subject to the lien, and charged with the payment, of the debt due to the plaintiff, and all other debts owed by the limited partnership, ratably; that each of the defendants be decreed to pay to the receiver to be appointed in this suit whatever money they have received by virtue of their respective judgments or any suit based thereon, out of said property; that such money and all moneys realized by such receiver from the assets of the limited partnership be paid to its creditors ratably; that such receiver be appointed to convert the property into money and distribute it; that the defendants Flower, Remy, Gregory and the sheriff be temporarily enjoined from paying over to any person any proceeds of the property of the limited partnership, which they now have or may hereafter receive under any of said judgments, executions or creditors' bills; and that such injunction be made perpetual on a hearing. Boies, Fay, Conkey, the First National Bank of Chicago, Flower, Remy and Gregory, the sheriff of Cook County and four others of the defendants, were served with a summons. Flower, Remy and Gregory entered an appearance in the suit for Boies, Fay and Conkey on the 21st of March, 1883, and on the 2d of April, 1883, also entered an appearance for themselves, the sheriff of Cook County and two others of the defendants. On the 2d of April, 1883, Flower, Remy and Gregory, as solicitors for the defendant the First National Bank of Chicago, Opinion of the Court. served on the solicitors for the plaintiff a notice that, on the 4th of April, 1883, they would present to the Circuit Court of Cook County a petition and bond, on behalf of that bank, for the removal of the cause to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois, and ask for an order removing the cause. The petition and bond were presented, both of them dated April 2, 1883. The petition was sworn to by the defendant Flower, one of the firm of Flower, Remy & Gregory, who also executed the bond as surety. The petition is made by the First National Bank of Chicago, Illinois, and is entitled in the suit, naming as defendants those against whom the bill prays process. It states "that the controversy in said suit is between citizens of different States, and that your petitioner was at the time of the commencement of this suit and still is a citizen of the State of Illinois; that Chester C. Corbin, the complainant, was then and still is a citizen of the State of Massachusetts;" that twelve of the defendants "were then and still are citizens of the State of Illinois;" that four of them " were then and still are citizens of the State of Iowa;" that one of them was then and still is a citizen of the State of New York; one, of the State of Ohio; two, of the State of Michigan; three, of the State of Wisconsin; one, of the State of Colorado; "that the defendants, The Bay State Sugar Refining Company, the First National Bank of Westboro', Alvin F. Shumway and Walter Potter, were then and still are citizens of the State of Massachusetts;" and that "in the said suit above mentioned there is a controversy which is wholly between citizens of different States, and which can be fully determined as between them, to wit, a controversy between the said petitioner, who is a citizen of the State of Illinois, and the said complainant, Chester C. Corbin, who is a citizen of the State of Massachusetts." No order appears to have been made by the state court on the presentation of the petition and bond, but the clerk of that court on the 9th of April, 1883, signed a certificate under its seal to a transcript of the record in that court, which was filed in the Circuit Court of the United States for the North Opinion of the Court. ern District of Illinois on the 11th of April, 1883; and the cause has since proceeded in the latter court. The cause was put at issue, proofs were taken by the respective parties, and, on the 17th of November, 1885, a decree was made by the court, finding as facts that on or about the 20th of August, 1882, the limited partnership composed of Boies, Fay, Conkey and Graves was insolvent, and so continued to the termination of its business, with the knowledge of each of the members thereof; that, with such knowledge, such members continued to do business until the 22d of January, 1883, when Fay and Conkey, assuming to be successors of Boies, Fay & Conkey, confessed seven judgments in the Superior Court of Cook County, one of them in favor of the First National Bank of Chicago and one in favor of Graves, and fifteen judgments in the said Circuit Court of the United States, one of them in favor of Graves, one in favor of The Bay State Sugar Refining Company, one in favor of Shumway, one in favor of the First National Bank of Westboro', Massachusetts, and one in favor of Potter; that the members composing the limited partnership of Boies, Fay & Conkey went through the form of a dissolution thereof, for the purpose of defeating the statute of Illinois which prohibited insolvent limited partnerships from preferring creditors, and to defraud a part of their creditors; that such partnership was still subsisting at the time of the confession and entry of each of the judgments; that the judgments were confessed to prefer certain creditors, but chiefly to save Graves from loss on account of said partnership or on account of liabilities incurred by him on commercial paper made by or on behalf of it; that immediately after the judgments were entered in the Superior Court of Cook County, Graves and Fay caused executions to be issued thereon to the sheriff of that county, who levied them on all the stock in trade and merchandise of the limited partnership and sold the property at public sale, and with its proceeds, on February 26, 1883, paid to the First National Bank of Chicago, on its judgment, $40,000, and on the same day paid to Graves, on his judgment in the Superior Court of Cook County, $9791.18; that the defendants Flower, Remy Opinion of the Court. and Gregory were employed as counsel by the limited partnership, and by Graves on his own behalf, to enter the judgments by confession, and to advise and represent the said firm and Graves in and about all matters and things affecting it and Graves, and received from them $2500 for services rendered and to be rendered in that behalf; that each of the judgments was confessed for the full amount due the several preferred creditors, and in some cases for more than was due, and for five per cent in addition thereto for attorneys' fees, which latter amount was intended as a provision for Flower, Remy and Gregory out of the assets of the limited partnership; and that they received without right, out of such assets, on account of attorneys' fees, $8559.80. The decree further found that Fay and Conkey had each taken from the assets of the firm, and fraudulently appropriated to his own use, certain specified sums of money; that Graves had, on the 21st and 22d days of January, 1883, fraudulently appropriated to his own use drafts and checks belonging to the limited partnership, amounting to $2741.38; that on the 22d and 23d days of January, 1883, and after the levy of the executions aforesaid, Flower, Remy and Gregory collected drafts and checks belonging to the limited partnership, amounting to $1927.96, which they still held; that the judgments in favor of the Dubuque County Bank, the Commercial National Bank and the Importers' and Traders' National Bank were confessed at the special instance of Graves; that the judgment in favor of the Commercial National Bank was not an indebtedness due from the limited partnership to the bank; that Graves owes that partnership a sum equal to its assets which had been applied by his direction in payment of the last-named three judgments; that in a creditors' suit brought by Graves and the last-named three banks against Fay and Conkey, Hancock as receiver, and with the funds in his hands as such, paid to said three banks in the aggregate $41,525.59, and to Graves, on his judgment in the Circuit Court of the United States, $27,232.50; that in a certain other suit by creditors' bill in said Circuit Court of the United States, wherein The Bay State Sugar Refining |