Huntington v. Attrill/Dissent Fuller

by Melville Fuller

United States Supreme Court

146 U.S. 657

Huntington  v.  Attrill

Mr. Chief Justice FULLER, dissenting.

This suit was not an action at law to recover judgment in Maryland upon the judgment in New York, nor was it an ordinary creditors' bill brought by a creditor to reach equitable assets. The judgment and execution had no extraterritorial force, and Huntington was a judgment creditor in New York only. It was the bill of a creditor at large to set aside an alleged fraudulent transfer, judgment not being essential under the statute of Maryland in that behalf. It could not have been sustained at all but for that act, and it did not assume to proceed upon the theory that the transfer was invalid because made with intent to defeat the collection of the judgment as such. The judgment of another state could not be made executory in Maryland, either at law or in equity.

The ground of relief in this case was the charge that Attrill and transferred certain stock in April, 1882, with intent to hinder, delay, and defraud the plaintiff of his lawful suits, debts, and demands in respect of a liability of Attrill to him as a stockholder and as a director of the Rockaway Company, which accrued in 1880, upon the statute of New York, under which that company was organized. An action upon this liability, either as stockholder or director, was barred by the statute of limitations of Maryland, and so the Maryland court held. The judgment recovered in New York in 1886 by Huntington against Attrill upon the alleged liability as a director was, however, referred to and made part of the bill, and in this judgment that cause of action had been merged; and it was averred that the transfer was fraudulent as to the indebtedness arising 'out of the cause of action on which the judgment hereinbefore recited has been recovered,' which was set forth in detail.

The New York statute was made part of the pleading, and admitted as a fact by the demurrer; and, while the Maryland court held that the judgment was conclusive evidence of its existence in the form and under the circumstances stated in the pleadings, it regarded it as not changing the character of the liability upon which it was based. The record established the relation of debtor and creditor at the time stated, and the amount and fact of the indebtedness, but nothing further.

As plaintiff had no judgment in Maryland, and had not sought to recover one, the pleader, in order to make out the alleged fraud as perpetrated in 1882, went into the original cause of action at large, and invited the attention of the court to its nature. The question at once arose whether the courts of Maryland were constrained to enforce such a cause of action, although record evidence of its maintenance in New York existed in the form of a judgment there. The court held that the liability was not one arising upon contract, but one imposed upon Attrill as a wrongdoer; that under the statute no inquiry was to be made whether the creditor had been deceived and induced by deception to lend his money or to give credit, or whether he had incurred loss to any extent by the inability of the corporation to pay, nor was the recevery limited to the amount of the loss sustained; that all that it was necessary to show was that the act had been committed, and thereupon any creditor was entitled to recover the full amount of his debt. See Torbett v. Eaton, 113 N. Y. 623, 20 N. E. Rep. 876; Id., 49 Hun, 209, 1 N. Y. Supp. 614; Huntington v. Attrill, 118 N. Y. 365, 23 N. E. Rep. 544. Hence the court concluded that the liability was in the nature of a penalty, within the rule theretofore laid down by the courts of New York, (Bank v. Bliss, 35 N. Y. 412; Wiles v. Suydam, 64 N. Y. 173; Stokes v. Stickney, 96 N. Y. 323; Chase v. Curtis, 113 U.S. 452, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 554; Flash v. Conn, 109 U.S. 371, 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. Price, 33 Md. 487; Norris v. Wrenschall, 34 Price, 33 Md. 487; Norris v. Wreschall, 34 Md. 492.) Its enforcement was therefore declined, and the bill dismissed.

It was for the Maryland court to determine whether such enforcement would either directly or indirectly involve the execution of the penal laws of another state; and, although it might have been mistaken in the conclusion arrived at, such error does not give this court jurisdiction to review its judgment. State courts do not adjudicate in the matter of the enforceability of statutory delicts at their peril.

In my opinion, the Maryland court gave all the force and effect to the judgment in question to which it was entitled. The pleadings were necessarily confined to the equities arising out of the original cause of action, and full faith and credit were accorded to the judgment as matter of evidence. Its effect as such could not render it incompetent for the state court to decide for itself the question which was raised upon the record. As there presented, it was for that court to say whether the obligation on Attrill to pay the sum for which the judgment was given was an obligation which the Maryland court was bound to recognize as proper foundation for relief in equity in respect of the transfer of April. 1882.

I think that no federal question was involved, and that the writ of error ought to be dismissed.