Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/304

 BAHLGARD V. KENNEDY. 297 �rendered, and it is charge J that the decree was fraudulent, the court can entertain jurisdietion, and, if the fraud is proved, can prevent ail parties who are before it from enforcing the decree, and, of course, from obtaining any advantage by virtue of a sale made thereunder. The court acts upon the decree and sale tnroiigh the parties who are before it, not directly upon the decree of the other court, but adjudges that, notwithstanding the decree, the parties who obtained it, and those before the court who claim property by virtue of a sale under it, with knowledge of the fraud, shall not appropriate to their use the property thus acquired. �It is true, relief may sometimes be had by motion in the same court, or by a bill in the nature of a bill in review, but Buch relief is not always adequate, and an original bill is a proper mode of seeking redress against a decree .obtained by fraud or covin. �The rule is clearly and concisely stated by Justice Bradley in Barrow v. Hunton, 9 Otto, 82. In speaking of the dis- tinction between the two classes when an original suit may be entertained, and when the application for relief should be made to the court granting the judgment or decree, he says : "If the proceeding is merely tantamount to the common-law practice of moving to set aside a judgment for irregularity, or to a writ of error, or to a bill of review, or an appeal, it would belong to the latter category, and the United States court could not entertain jurisdietion of the case. • * * * * On the other hand, if the proceedings are tantamount to a bill in equity to set aside a decree for fraud in the obtaining thereof, then they constitute an original and independent proceeding, * » * * and the case might be within the cognizance of the federal courts. In the one class there would be a mere revision of errors and irregularities, or of the legality and correctness of the judgments and decrees of the state courts ; in the other, the investigation of a new case, arising upon new facts, though having relation to the validity of an existing judgment or decree, or to the right of the party to claim any benefit by reason thereof." �I think the jurisdietion of the court to entertain this suit ����