Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/94

 OliABK ». BWIMfl. 87 �eaîd that no suit by an assignee, for a sum exceedîng $500, can be prosecuted in a state court." �The same conclusion waa arrived at by the supreme court of the state of Indiana in Sherwood v. Burns, 58 Ind. 502, and Dodd v. Hammock, 40 6a., although those courts based their decisions mainly upon the sixth clause of section 711 of the U. S. Eevised Statutes, clothing the courts of the United States with exclusive jurisdietion of ail mattera and proceed- ings in bankruptcy, holding that as this section was adopted after the commencement of that suit it ousted the state court of iurisdiotion in a plenary suit brought by an assignee in bankruptcy. . The same question arose, however, before th« supreme court of Massachusetts, in Goodrich y. Wilson, 119 Mass. 429, in which that court, in an opinion delivered by ■ Chief Justice Gray, held that "the effect of the provisions of the act of congress of 1874 is not to confer or take away juris- diction of the state courts, but simply to allow the federal courts of original jurisdietion to decline to entertain actions of common law to which the assignee is a party, in which the debt demanded is less than the amount which determines the jurisdietion of those courts in other cases." The supreme court of New York for the fourth department, in Wente v. Young, 17 N. B. R. 90, a case later than that of Olcott t. Me- Lean, above quoted, held as follows : �"The only effect of that amendment, (June 22, 1874,) as we read it, is to permit the federal courts to decline to entertain actions brought to recover legal assets of a bankrupt not ex- ceeding $500 in amount. It does not limit or take away the jurisdietion of the state courts, but it authorizes the federal courts, in their discretion, to relieve themselves of a class of cases which it may be supposed can be more conveniently disposed of in the state courts. Subject to the authority thus conf erred, the concurrent jurisdietion of the federal and state courts over ail actions brought by an assignee to collect the assets of the bankrupt, whether legal or equitable, and of whatever amount, remains as it was before the amendment. The amendment and the Bevised Statutes were passed at the same session, and were approved on the same day, and they ����