BROW N V. SMITH.
665
BROWN v.
SMITH. June 4, 1898.)
(Circuit Court, D. Vermont.
JURISDICTION OF FgDERAL COURTS-AcTIONS BY REcmVEHS (H' NATIONAl, BANK!!.
Circuit courts have jurisdiction of actions by receivers of national banks to collect assessments made by the comptroller, witbout regard to the amount Involved.
Thos. J. Boynton, for plaintiff. John H. Senter, for defendant. WHEELEH, District Judge. This suit is brought by the plaintiff as receiver of the Sioux Kational Bank to recover an assessment upon the shares therein held by the defendant amounting to $900. The defendant has moved to dismiss it for want of jurisdiction, because the matter in dispute does not exceed, exclusive of interest and cost, $2,000. l"iection 629 of the Revised Statutes, concerning the jurisdiction of the eircuit courts, was divided into 20 paragraphs, the subjects of but few of which were carried into the act of 1875, to determine the jurisdiction of the circuit courts and regulate the removal of causes from state comts. 18 Stat. 470. Among the subjects left were suits by officers of the United States suing under authority of any ad of conb'ress, and suits by or against national banking associations. Receivers of national banks, as plaintiffs, had always been held to be officers of the United States suing under authority of acts of congress. Theil' right to sue in the circuit courts, without regard to the amount claimed, was held not to have been taken away by the act of 1875, by Mr. Justice Gray and Judge Nelson, in the circuit comt of the district of :\lassachusetts in 1883. Price v. Abbott, 17 Fed. 506. This decision appears to have been uniformly followed in the circuit courts. Armstrong v. EttIesohn, 36 Fed. 209; Arm· strong v. Trautman, rd. 275; Yardley v. Dickson, 47 Fed. 835; Fisher v. Yoder, 53 Fed. 565. In Thompson v. Pool, 70 Fed. 725, Judge Shiras seems to ha ve doubted whether a receiver of a national bank, in view of the decisions of the supreme court in U. S. v. Germaine, 99 U. S. 508, and U.S. v. Mouat, 124 U. S. 303, 8 Sup. Ot. 50'5, was an officer of the United States, but to have followed the decisions ·of the circuit courts. Since those cases the supreme court has again held that such a receiver is such an officer. Gibson v. Peters, 150 U. S. 342, 14 Sup. ot. 134. So the law stood until the act of 1887 to amend sections 1, 2, 3, and 10 of the act of 1875, and the act of 1888, to correct the enrollment of the act of 1887. 25 Stat. 866, p. 433. That act amends that part of the act of 1875 granting jurisdiction by raising the amount in dispute from $500 to $2,000, and not otherwise, and draws the provisions relating to jurisdiction of suits by and against national banks into section 4, and confines it to such as would be had between individual citizens of the same state, and adds: "The provisions of this section shall not be held to affect the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States in cases commenced by the United States or by direction of any officer thereof, or cases for winding up the affairs of any such bank" Oases brought by re-
566
88 1l'EDERAL REPORTER.
o
ceivers for the collection of laid by the comptroller upon the shareholders are cases for winding up the affairs of the banks, and are not affected by the provisions of that section, which is the only one in the act relating to this subject, nor by those of any other section. ,This jurisdiction, therefore, seems to remain, the same as it was under section 629 of the Revised Statutes and the act of 1875. In this view, the motion must be overruled. Motion denied.
BERTHA ZINC & MINERAL CO. v. VAUGHAN.
(Circuit Court, W. D. Virginia. JUly 27, 1898.) I. JURISDICTION OF FELlER'AI' COUHTS-DIVEHSE CITJZENSfIJP-ACTfONB BY ABo SIGNEES.
A nonresident assignee of a share in the estate of an Intestate, who sues the administrators and their sureties to enforce obligations incurred by an alleged failure to properly discharge their duties, is not an assi,gnee of a chose in action, In the meaning of the judieiary act of March 3, 1887, so as to be precluded from maintaining the suitin It federal court by the fact that his assignor could not have maintained It therein.
2, SAME-DECHEE OF STATE COURT SETTLING ADMINISTHATOH's ACCOUNT3.
A federal court may, In a case of diverse citizenship, entertain a snit to surcharge and correct a settlement of accounts by administrators which has been,confirmed by decree of the proper state court.
Blair & Blair, for plaintiff. Walker & Caldwell, for defendants. PAUL, District Judge. The plaintiff is a corporation chartered under tb,e laws of the state of New Jersey, and is a citizen of that state. It brings its bill in equity against J. P. Vaughan, adminis· trator of one Michllel Black, deceased, and the sureties on his official bond; J. P. Vaughanand T. C. Vaughan, co-administrators of Michael Black, deceased; the sureties on the official bond of said co-administrators; certain persons as distributees of the estate of said Michael Clark Litterall; and B. F. Garnett. The defendBlack, ants ar(i all citizens of the state of Virginia. The material allegations of the, bill are as follows: In the year 1888 Michael Black was accidentally killed while in the service of the Bertha Zinc Company, dying intestate; leaving, as the distributees of his estate, his children..-among them a daughter, Candice, who had intermarried with one ,George Nelson. On the 2d day of October, 1888, J. P. Vaughan was appointed administrator of the estate of said Michael Black by the county court of Grayson county, Va., and as such executed bond with sureties. On the 6th day of October, 1892, in the county court of Grayson county, the said J. P. Vaughan and one T. C. Vaughan were appointed co-administrators of the estate of said Michael Black, deceased, executing a bond with sureties in the penalty of $15,000. The bill alleges that in the month of February, 1893, there passed into the hands of the said administrators the sum of $13,()(j3.37, being the proceeds of an execution in the name of J. P. Vaughan, administrator, etc., against the Bertha Zinc Oompany, which sum was liable to distribution among the heirs and distributees