Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/110

 ignorance of the equities of the whole case. Their judgments, under such circumstances, might, and probably would, be inconsistent and conflicting. One court might order one thing, and another court another contrary and different thing. An attempt to enforce these conflicting judgments would result in a conflict of judicial authority. The pendency of outside litigation, seeking to subject the trust fund in the hands of the receiver, would necessarily occasion delay. No final disposition of the original cause could be safely made until the litigation pending in other courts against the receiver was determined. The average life of a contested law suit in the courts of Ohio, I understand, is about five years. Before one suit could be determined another would most likely be instituted, and thus the court which first obtained jurisdiction would be ousted of its control of the trust fund, and rendered impotent to adjust the equities of the case, close the receiver’s accounts, and terminate the litigation. We cannot sanction a doctrine fraught with so many inconveniences and complications.

It follows, from what we have already said, that the second position is as untenable as the first. The petitioner claims that a trial by jury is guarantied to him by the constitution. This instrument provides that “in all suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed $20, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” The amount in controversy in this case is more than $20, and, if the petitioner’s case is “a suit at law,” his demand for a trial by jury must be conceded. But it is not a suit at law. The original cause in which he intervenes is of equitable cognizance, and could not have been maintained in a court of law. It is, then, a chancery cause, pending in, and to be determined by, a chancery court. The constitutional guaranty securing trial by jury does not in terms extend to chancery courts. It has not been so understood or interpreted. On the contrary, courts of chancery are, and always have been, invested with the prerogative of deciding the facts as well as the law of cases pending before them. Their right, generally, to do this has not been denied by the counsel in this case. But it is said,