Chamberlin v. Browning/Opinion of the Court

by Edward Douglass White

United States Supreme Court

177 U.S. 605

Chamberlin  v.  Browning

 Argued: April 19, 1900. --- Decided: May 14, 1900

Along with an argument upon the merits, counsel for the appellees have presented a motion to dismiss this appeal as to all the appellees, because of the absence of any controversy involving the requisite jurisdct ional amount. This motion we find to be well taken.

The decree appealed from affected only the defendants, who, as attaching creditors, had prosecuted actions in the Maryland court upon their claims against their debtor, Scott, and had by ancillary proceedings subjected real estate owned by their debtor to the satisfaction of the judgments obtained in the actions referred to.

Recovery of land or its value was not the relief sought by the bill below against the attaching creditors, for said creditors did not hold or assert title to the land. The value of the land, therefore, was clearly not the subject-matter of dispute between the complainants and the said attaching creditors. The relief prayed against the latter was the enjoining of the enforcement against real estate in Maryland of the judgments obtained by the appellees, or the bringing into court of any moneys realized from said land by virtue of the proceedings. But the appellees, as attaching creditors, were not jointly asserting their claims against Scott or his property, nor were they claiming under a common right. Their claims and the judgments based thereon were separate and distinct, the one from the other, and in no case did the amount of the judgments obtained by either of the appellees equal $5,000. The case presented is clearly within the principle of the decision in Gibson v. Shufeldt, 122 U.S. 27, 30 L. ed. 1083, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1066, and cases there cited. The Gibson Case was a suit brought by general creditors to set aside as fraudulent a conveyance in trust for the benefit of preferred creditors. The decree set aside the conveyance as fraudulent so far only as it affected the rights of the plaintiffs. But one of such general creditors held a claim amounting to $5,000. A motion to dismiss the appeal as to all other plaintiffs was sustained, the court holding that the sole matter in dispute between the defendants and each plaintiff was as to the amount which the latter should recover, and that the motion to dismiss the appeal of the defendants as to all the plaintiffs except the one whose debt exceeded the jurisdictional amount, should be granted. Had the appellants recovered against the appellees the amount collected by the latter upon their judgments, it is clear that the amount in dispute for the purpose of determining jurisdiction would be the amount of recovery assessed against each defendant separately. Henderson v. Wadsworth, 115 U.S. 264, 29 L. ed. 377, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 40; Friend v. Wise, 111 U.S. 797, 28 L. ed. 602, 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 695. As stated in the Henderson case, neither codefendant nor coplaintiffs can unite their separate and distinct interests for the purpose of making up the amount necessary to give this court jurisdiction upon writ of error or appeal. If, therefore, the appellees could not, if recovery had been had against them, unite their separate interests for the purposes of an appeal, the appellants cannot do so for the purpose of asserting the existence of appellate jurisdiction in this court.

In the case at bar, we repeat, in effect, the substantial relief sought against the attaching creditors, and the matter in dispute between them, was the defeat of the distinct and separate claims of each attaching creditor so far as it respected the real estate owned by Scott, and, as already shown, no defendant was asserting claims which aggregated the amount required to confer jurisdiction upon this court.

Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

Notes