Opinion of the Court.

Company, Shumway, the First National Bank of Westboro', Massachusetts, Potter and three other persons were plaintiffs, and Fay and Conkey were defendants, and in which also Hancock was receiver, he paid, out of the assets in his hands as such receiver, to The Bay State Sugar Refining Company, on its judgment, $2000, to that company on the judgment in favor of Shumway, $1398, to the First National Bank of Westboro', on its judgment, $2400, to Potter, on his judg ment, $860, and to the other three persons $2060 in all; that the two creditors' bills above named, one brought by the Commercial National Bank and others, and the second brought by The Bay State Sugar Refining Company and others, were each brought and prosecuted with the intention of defrauding the creditors of the limited partnership of their just rights; that Fay and Conkey consented to the filing of said bills and the. appointment of a receiver thereunder; and that the limited partnership was indebted to the plaintiff in the sum of $4359.31.

The decree then proceeded to adjudge that all the property and effects held by the limited partnership on the 20th of August, 1882, and subsequently thereto, and when the judgments were confessed, were a special trust fund for the payment of the firm debts ratably among its creditors; that Graves pay to the clerk of the court within thirty days, for the benefit of the plaintiff and such other creditors of the limited partnership as should prove their right to share in the distribution of the assets of the firm, $100,796.71, with interest; that Flower, Remy and Gregory in like manner pay to the clerk of the court $9886.57; that Fay and Conkey pay in like manner $2728.92; that execution issue against the property of such defendants respectively, in case of non-payment; referring it to a master to take proof of the debts of the creditors of the limited partnership; charging Graves, Fay and Conkey with the costs of the cause; and reserving all matters not decreed upon, including the right to decree against the creditors in whose favor the judgments were confessed, with leave to the plaintiff to apply for such further order as might be necessary in relation to any matter not finally determined by that decree.

Opinion of the Court.

Graves and Flower, Remy and Gregory prayed separate appeals to this court, which were allowed. The appeal of Flower, Remy and Gregory was afterwards dismissed while it was pending in this court.

On the 23d of January, 1888, the plaintiff and other creditors of the limited partnership, having proved their claims before the master to the amount of $125,737.34, (and the master having reported in favor of said claims on the 9th of July, 1886,) filed a petition in the cause, stating that Graves had failed to pay any part of the amount decreed against him; that but very little more had been realized under the decree of November 17, 1885, than sufficient to pay the costs, expenses and solicitors' fees incurred in the suit; and that the petitioners insisted that, under the proofs already taken, they were entitled to a decree against the First National Bank of Chicago for $50,000. They therefore prayed for a decree against that bank, requiring it to pay, within thirty days, to the receiver in the cause, $50,000, with interest at six per cent per annum from March 1, 1883.

On the 23d of April, 1888, the Circuit Court, held by Judge Gresham, delivered an opinion, (34 Fed. Rep. 692,) in which it recited the grounds on which the decree of November 17, 1885, had been made, and ordered a decree against the First National Bank of Chicago.

The decree was entered on the 3d of May, 1888. It found that on the judgment for $40,000 in favor of the bank, confessed by Fay and Conkey as successors of the limited partnership, on January 22, 1883, the bank had, on or about February 26, 1883, received out of the sale of the assets of that partnership by the sheriff, on an execution in its favor, $38,708.35; that at the time of the pretended dissolution of the partnership, in October, 1882, and on the 2d of December, 1882, and later, the bank knew that such partnership was insolvent and unable to pay all its creditors, and knew that the contract for its dissolution was a pretended one and entered into for the purpose of protecting Graves from liability as special partner and as endorser for the firm; that the bank co-operated with the members of the partnership for the accom

Opinion of the Court.

plishment of such purpose; and that the judgment was confessed for that purpose, and to obtain an illegal preference over other creditors. It decreed that the bank pay to the receiver within thirty days the sum so received, with interest at six per cent from February 26, 1883, amounting in all to $50,721.95; and that, if it were not paid, execution should issue against the property of the bank.

The bank prayed an appeal to this court. The record on the appeal of Graves was filed in this court October 11, 1886, and the record on the appeal of the bank was filed October 17, 1888.

Both of the appeals have been argued in full on the merits. But the preliminary question arises as to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court in the case, by virtue of the removal of the cause from the state court on the petition of the bank; and the point is taken by the respective appellants that the Circuit Court acquired no jurisdiction, because at the time of the commencement of the suit and at the time of its removal, as appears by the petition for removal, the plaintiff and four of the defendants, namely Shumway, Potter, The Bay State Sugar Refining Company and the First National Bank of Westboro', were all of them citizens of Massachusetts. The determination of this question must depend upon whether, at the time of the commencement of the suit, there was a separable controversy between the plaintiff and the petitioner for removal, the First National Bank of Chicago. If there was but a single controversy in the entire cause, of course there could be no separable controversy between the plaintiff and the bank.

By section 2 of the act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, 18 Stat. 470, under which the removal took place, it was provided that when, in any suit mentioned in the section, "there shall be a controversy which is wholly between citizens of different States, and which can be fully determined as between them, then either one or more of the plaintiffs or defendants actually interested in such controversy may remove said suit into the Circuit Court of the United States for the proper district." The petition for removal states that in the suit "there is a

Opinion of the Court.

controversy which is wholly between citizens of different States, and which can be fully determined as between them," namely, a controversy between the plaintiff and the bank. But we are of opinion that there was in the suit but a single controversy, and that that controversy was not wholly between citizens of different States. There were various branches of the controversy, various defendants and various claims by the several defendants; but the controversy was between the plaintiff on the one side, and the defendants who were alleged by the bill to have claims adversely to the plaintiff against the property of the limited partnership, as a whole, on the other side.

The case as made by the bill, and as it stood at the time of the petition for removal, is the test of the right to removal. The bill was filed to reach the entire property of the limited partnership. In order to do that, it was necessary to sweep away not some but all of the confessed judgments and all the rights obtained by executions and levies thereunder, and to restore to the assets and moneys of the partnership in the hands of the court the assets and moneys which had been fraudulently diverted therefrom by the members of the partnership, with the co-operation of the various defendants. The bill states that promissory notes were given in favor of the four defendants who were citizens of Massachusetts; that judgments on confession, in pursuance of warrants of attorney, were rendered in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois, against Fay and Conkey, in favor of the four Massachusetts defendants; that, immediately after the entry of those judgments, Flower, Remy and Gregory, as the attorneys of the members of the limited partnership, and as the attorneys of record for the plaintiffs in those judgments, caused executions to be issued thereon to the marshal of the district, against the property of Fay and Conkey; that the same were returned nulla bona; that, thereupon, Flower, Remy and Gregory, as such attorneys, and on behalf of the plaintiffs in said four judgments and in three others, filed a creditors' bill in the Circuit Court of the United States, to reach the property of Fay and Conkey, in

Opinion of the Court.

which suit a receiver was appointed; that the said four judg ments were entered in pursuance of the fraudulent scheme alleged in the bill, on the part of the members of the limited partnership, to hinder, delay and defraud its creditors, and evade the provisions of the statute of Illinois, and to prefer the plaintiffs in those several judgments over other creditors; that the four judgments in favor of the citizens of Massachusetts were largely in excess of the amount due to them respectively at the time of the entry of the judgments; and that those judgments are void. It prays for a decree declaring the four judgments to be void, and directing the payment to the receiver of all moneys received by such four defendants under the judgments or under any proceedings based thereon. These allegations, with the others contained in the bill, made but a single controversy, as to all of the defendants. The relief asked could not have been granted unless all who were made defendants were parties. Therefore, all of them were necessary parties.

In Brinkerhoff v. Brown, 6 Johns. Ch. 139, it was held that a creditors' bill could be filed against several persons relative to matters of the same nature, forming a connected series of acts, all intended to defraud and injure the plaintiffs, and in which all the defendants were more or less concerned, though not jointly in each act. The case there arose on a demurrer to the bill. It was urged that the bill was multifarious in uniting all the defendants and distinct and unconnected matters. Fraud was charged against the five trustees of the Genesee Company, in confessing judgments and causing the property of the company to be sold. There was a charge of a combined fraud, affecting seven of the defendants, two of whom were not concerned in every part of the fraudulent conduct. All the acts sought to be impeached were alleged to have been done with a fraudulent intent as respected creditors. The court says: "There was a series of acts on the part of the persons concerned in this Genesee Company, all produced by the same fraudulent intent and terminating in the deception and injury of the plaintiffs. The defendants performed different parts in the same drama; but it was still one piece-one entire per