Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/176

 164 FEDERAL REPORTER. �bring this property into a situation in Tvliich it may be reached by the execution under the judgment, or to subject the property itself, when it shall be found, to the payment of the judgment. The purpose of the bill is something more than mere discovery. It is to reach the property, and bave it applied to the payment of the judgment ; and it is one of the oldest heads of equity jurisdiotion, in proceedings of this kind, to secure to creditors the payment of their judgments, when the property of a debior bas been pût in a situation in whieh it cannot be reached by execution at law. �Now, as to the statute of the state which gives a remedy for reaching the property and effects of a judgment debtor, the examination of the debtor himself, and ail persons who may have knowledge as to the, disposition of bis effects, in a proceeding supplementary to the suit in which the judgment was obtained, it is only necessary to say that it is a special proceeding, which does not in any way effeot the equity juris- diction of this court. �There are many decisions of the supreme court to the ef- fect, generally, that the authority and jurisdiction of the fed- eral courts is not subject to the control of state legislation; and there are two decisions of circuit courts which I regard as directly in point in relation to such statutes as this. The first of these is the case of Croppcr v. Coburn, reported in 2 Curtis' Eeports, 465. A statute of Massachusetts pro- vided that when an attachment should be levied upon the interest of one of several copartners in the partnership effects, other partners should be at liberty to give to the officer a bond to pay to the attaching crediter the appraised value of the debtor's share of the property attached. Upon bill filed in the circuit court to restrain the officer and the plaintiff in the attachment suit from levying a writ on partnership effects, it was held that the equity jurisdiotion of the court was not at ail affected by the statute of the state. �And in Byrd v. Badger, McAllister, 443, the precise question here presented arose in the circuit court for the district of California. That was a proceeding in the federal court under the statute of California, supplementary to execution. That ����