Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/249

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HARVEY ». LOBD. 237 �Manufacturera' National Bank, filed in this court a creditor's bill to enforce payment of his judgment; that such proceedings were taken in the case that Joel D. Harvey was appointed receiver of all the prop- erty and affecta of the bank, and entered upon the discharge of the duties of his office and took possession of the property of the bank; tLat afterwards, on the fifth of October, 1876, an amended bill was filed in said cause, to which all the stockholders of the bank were made parties, by which the complainant sought, in behalf of himself a id all other creditors, to enforce the liability of the stockholders of the bank for the purpose of discharging the indebtedness of the bank ; that the defendant in this suit, as one of the stockholders of the bank, •was made a party to the Irons suit; that said suit in chancery is still pending, and this suit at law ie brought for the same cause, and to eijforce the same liability, which the creditor's bill by Irons seeks to enforce as against this defendant; and therefore he prays an abatement of this suit. �At the time the original bill was filed by Irons there was no ex- press provision in the national banking law for the enforcement of a stockholder's liability by the macbinery of a creditor's bill, and the supreme court, in Kennedy v. Gibson, 8 Wall. 498, had decided that the stockholder's liability could only be enforced through a receiver appointed by the comptroller of the currency. But on June 30, 1 876, congress passed an act amendatory of the national banking law which provided by the second section as follows : �"When any national banking association shall have gone into liquidation under the provisions of section 5220 of said statute, the individual liability of the shareholder provided for by section 5151 of the said statute may be en- forced by any creditor of such association, by bill in equity in the nature of a creditor's bill brought by such creditor on behalf of himself and all other creditors of the association against the shareholders thereof in any court of the United States having original jurisdiction in equity for the district in which said association may be located or established. " �The amended and supplemental bill was filed by Irons af ter the passage of this amendment, and was intended to bring all the stock- holders of the Manufacturers' National Bank before the court, and to enforce their liability through the agency of the receiver appointed by the court in that case. This defendant is a party to and has answered in that suit. About a year ago, and long after the amended and supplemental bill of Irons was filed, the comptroller of the cur- rency appointed a receiver to wind up the aflfairs of this bank, and named the same person whom this court had appointed in the Irons ��� �