James Moore Wayne

“ A receiver is appointed under a creditor's bill for one or more creditors, as the case may be, for their benefit, to the exclusion of all other creditors of the debtor, if there be any such, as there are in this case. Whether appointed as this receiver was, under the statute of New York, or under the rules and practice of chancery as they may be, his official relations to the court are the same. A statute appointment neither enlarges nor diminishes the limitation upon his action. ”

“ And Sir John Leach said: 'When parties defendants are resident in England, and are brought upon subpoena here, the court has full authority to act upon them personally, with respect to the subject of the suit, as the ends of justice require, and with that view to order them to take or to omit to take any steps or proceedings in any other court of justice, whether in this or in a foreign country. This court does not pretend to any interference with the other courts.' It acts upon the defendant by punishment for his contempt, for his disobedience of the court. ”

“ We think that a receiver has never been recognized by a foreign tribunal as an actor in a suit. He is not within that comity which nations have permitted, after the manner of such nations as practise it, in respect to the judgments and decrees of foreign tribunals, for all of them do not permit it in the same manner and to the same extent, to make such comity international or a part of the laws of nations. But it was said that receivers in New York are statutory officers, as assignees in bankruptcy are. ”

“ When Clark had been enjoined under the creditor's bill, and the receiver had been appointed, both judgment creditor and receiver knew at the time,-certainly, as the record shows, in a short time afterwards, that Clark had a pecuniary claim upon the Republic of Mexico. No attempt was made, according to chancery practice, to coerce Clark by the attachment of his person under the injunction, to make an assignment of that claim for the payment of Camara's judgment. It cannot be said that Clark had not property to assign, and that it was therefore unnecessary to attach him. ”

“ In other words, as an officer of a court of chancery, for a particular purpose, will he be recognized as such by a foreign judicial tribunal, and be allowed to take from the latter a fund belonging to a debtor, for its application to the payment of a particular creditor within the jurisdiction of the receiver's appointment, there being other creditors in the jurisdiction in which he now sues, contesting his right to do so. ”

“ On the 29th May, 1851, Booth, the receiver, filed his bill in the circuit court for the District of Columbia, reciting so much of the proceedings of the New York courts as was deemed necessary to support his suit. He declares that Clark, when the original suit was instituted against him by Camara, and from that time until after he had been appointed receiver, had resided in New York. That his effects consisted principally, if not wholly, of the claim upon Mexico, and that he claimed that fund as receiver for the purposes of that appointment. Clark answered the bill. ”

“ A receiver is an indifferent person between parties, appointed by the court to receive the rents, issues, or profits of land, or other thing in question in this court, pending the suit, where it does not seem reasonable to the court that either party should do it. Wyatt's Prac. Reg. 355. He is an officer of the court; his appointment is provisional. He is appointed in behalf of all parties, and not of the complainant or of the defendant only. He is appointed for the benefit of all parties who may establish rights in the cause. ”

“ The design was to keep the money in the treasury, in order that claimants should have a reasonable time to prosecute their rights; the risk ran was that it should be paid over. As regards the claimant, it was merely directory. Time was not of the essence of the law. ”