Long v. Page
Long v. Page
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
The complainant seeks by this bill to obtain satisfaction of a judgment at law for sixty-se\en dollars and
An injunction was prayed for and granted, to restrain the negotiation, and payment of said note, out of which, after discharging the debt to Adams, the complainant prays to have satisfaction of said judgment.
The injunction was not issued for several weeks after the bill was filed; and in the interval, by the mutual consent of all the defendants, (but without knowledge of the filing of the bill, or of an injunction having been granted, as they allege in their answer,) said note was delivered back to the defendant, Page, discharged of the lien of Adams, and also of the lien of said Carters, for whose indemnity as sureties of Page to Adams for the debt above mentioned, it was also pledged to Adams, as stated in their answers.
In the proof, a copy of the execution referred to in the bill is set forth, with the return of the officer nulla bona. On the hearing, the chancellor decreed in favor of the complainant for the amount of said judgment against the defendants Page, Henry and William C. Carter, jointly; from which decree they appealed in error to this court.
We think the case depends upon well established principles of equity jurisprudence, with which the statute referred to has nothing to do. It may perhaps be true, that the case falls within the words of the statute; but it does not, belong to the class of cases for which that statute was designed to provide a remedy in equity, and for which, according to the adjudication of our courts, no remedy existed. Prior to the statute it had been held, that the ancillary jurisdiction of a court of equity extended no farther than to remove impediments which had been thrown in the way of the legal remedy, and not to furnish a new remedy or even to enlarge the legal remedy. If, therefore, the property were of such a nature that it could not be reached by an execution at law, a court of equity could not interpose, because it could only act in aid of legal process. To remedy the frequent and numerous hardships, and palpable injustice, resulting from this state of the law, the act of 1832, ch. 11, was passed, which confers a new jurisdiction on courts of equity, to subject stock, money, and other things in action, upon which the writ of fieri facias at law could not operate. But prior to the act of 1832, choses in action might be subjected at law by process
The objection that the bill does not show upon its face that the execution was returned, if available at any stage in the progress of the cause, could not be taken at the hearing. The principle applies to this case, that if the defendant submit to answer, without exception to the jurisdiction by demurrer or otherwise, he will not be heard to object to the jurisdiction on the hearing, unless the case made out in the pleadings and proof be unfit for the cognizance of a court of equity.
The surrender of the note by the pledgee, after the filing of the bill but before the service of the injunction, can have no effect whatever upon the complainant’s rights to relief in this case. The existing state of facts at the time of filing the bill, furnished a clear case for jurisdiction and relief. The issuance of an injunction was not necessary in order to give the complainant a locus standi in a court of equity. The fact that the legal interest in the note remained in the defendant, Page, and that the debt evidenced thereby remained due from the makers, was all that a court of equity deems essential in this case to entitle the complainant to relief.
The decree will be affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.