George Washington McCrary

“ It is not the province of a court of equity to take possession of the property and conduct the business of corporations or individuals except where the exercise of such extraordinary jurisdiction is indispensably necessary to save or protect some clear right of a suitor, which would otherwise be lost or greatly endangered, and which cannot be saved or protected by any other action or mode of proceeding. ”

“ The process of the court has not been used in good faith to collect complainant's judgment, but as a means of placing the property and business of the defendant railroad company in the hands of the court to be managed through a receiver, to the end that the defendant may not be subject to suits in the ordinary course of judicial [p574] proceedings, and in order to enable the plaintiff and defendant, by agreement between them, through the receiver to apply all the earnings of the road during a series of years to the improvement and betterment of the property. ”

“ In other words, the court is asked to stand between the company and its creditors, while the company is engaged in using the earnings, not to pay its debts, but to improve its property.
It is said that this policy is best for the company and its creditors. Whether this be so or not is for the company and its creditors to determine; it is not for the court to engage in the operation of a railroad through a receiver, because the interests of the parties concerned may be thereby advanced. ”