Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/221

 BENEDICT V. WILLIAMS. 209 �ever, is not material. It may be that the orator had only to pay Keriuichan as he agreed to, but, if so, he bas not paid to Kernochan Meade's share. That share, if payable to Kernochan, was payable to him for Meade, and Meade would have the right to proceed for it against both ; against Kernochan as his trustee, and against William? as a debtor to his trustee for him. This right he could sell and assign, as the bill alleges he did sell and assign it to the orator; and when 80 sold and assigned to the orator, be became vested with the right also in some manner to enforce it. �It is understood that the distinctions between legal and equitable procedure are done away with in the state courts, from which the oase was removed; and that there the remedy is to be sought by the real owner of a cause of action in his own name. In these courts these distinctions are kept up, although the proceedings at law conform to those of the courts of the state. �At common law a mere chose in action was not assignable at all, although it was assignable in equity, and hence an assignee of a chose in action could not main tain an action at law upon it in his own name, but could in the name of the assigner for his own benefit, or he could proceed in equity to recover it, and, if he did, must proceed in his own name. The orator took the only mode that was open to him in the state court. Had the proceedings remained there his rights would have been wrought out by the appropriate methods there pro- vided. But when the proceedings were removed into this court, they were neither removed from a court of law, or the law side of a court, to the law side of this court, nor from a court of equity, or from the equity side of a court to the equity side of this court ; but they were removed from that court as it was, where remedies are administered without this distinction, to this court, where this distinction is ob- served. And the removal was necessarily to that side of this court, where the appropriate relief, if due, could be obtained. He is merely the assignee of a chose in action, which accrued to Meade, or to Ker- nochan for Meade. The proceedings are in his own name, and he can go forward with such proceedings only on the equity side of the court. His right is a purely equitable one, and strictly cognizable in his own name in a court of equity only, or only where equitable remedies are administered, and the remedy is none the less equitable because it might not be so classed in the state court. �The demurrers are overruled, with leave to the defendant to answer over within 30 days on payment of costs of demurrer. V.10,no.2— le ��� �