Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/383

 OABBBTT V. BATLB8. 875 �ihis bill Garrett & Sons filed an answer, and the plaintif xeplied. The cause was then removed to this court. �In 1877 the legislature of Bhode Island passed an act tak« ing away the right to levy upon stockholders an execution upon a judgment against such corporations, and substituting a suit in equity, or action of debt. Grarrett & Sons alter- -wards brought a bill in this court against the stockholders of the file company resident in Bhode Island, to which they filed an answer, setting up the same equities which they had relied on in their bill filed to restrain the execution. Evi- dence was taken to be used in both cases, and they were heard together. �James TiMinghast and John K. Cowen, for Garrett & Sons. �A. Payne and Chas. Hart, for W. F. Sayles and others. �LowELL, J. For convenience, we shall call Garrett & Sons, plaintiffs, and Sayles and others, stockholders of the Amer- ican File Company, defendants. �We need not consider the bill filed in the state court by these defendants to restrain the plaintiffs' levy of execution, and removed to this comi, beeause our poweir to stay a pro- fless issuing out of the state court is doubtful, unless when such injunction had been issued while the case was in the state court; and beeause the plaintiffs, while insisting that the lawî of 1877, abolishing the remedy by levy upon the stockholders and substituting a bill in equity, cannot be enforced against them consistently with the constitution of the United States, or with that of Ehode Island, have acquiesced in fact and brought their bill in this court under that act, and the plead- ings in that suit raise ail the questions between the parties. �The defendants, admitting that they are stockholders of the corporation and liable generally for its debts, set up against these plaintiffs two equitable defences. �The first is that the stockholders, in the year 1870, agreed to pay the debts of the company in substantiel accordanoe with their respective ultimate liabilities, irafer «ese, by taking bonds in that proportion, and to look for reimbursement to the property conveyed in mortgage to trustees to sacore the ��� �