Melville Fuller

“ The railway company contends that its liability turned upon the fact that it took possession upon condition that its property should be charged with the receivership liabilities, and that it is immaterial whether the property was so charged by the order of the circuit court of the United States, or by operation of general doctrines of equity, because, in either aspect, it was the property alone that was charged. ”

“ In the view of that court, a railway company might be held directly liable when a receiver is appointed in an amicable suit at the instigation of the company, and for the company's own purposes, and, these purposes being accomplished, the property is returned to its owner, the rights of no third persons as purchasers intervening, upon the ground that the acts of the receiver might well be regarded as the acts of its own servant, rather than those of an officer of the court, which, under such circumstances, he would only be sub modo. ”

“ Certainly the preservation of general equity jurisdiction over suits instituted against receivers without leave does not, in promotion of the ends of justice, make it competent for the appointing court to determine the rights of persons who are not before it, or subject to its jurisdiction; and the right to sue without resorting to the appointing court, which involves the right to obtain judgment, cannot be assumed to have been rendered practically valueless by this further provision in the same section of the statute which granted it. ”