Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/231

 DOBMUZEIl V. ILLIKOIS Js ST. LOUIS BRIDGE CO. 219 �might, by its pleading, or its conduct, show that there. was no actual oontroversy between it and the plaintiff, and then the court would not lose its jurisdiction. Butit is not here, and cannot be required to corne here. �That a corporation is a necessary party to such a suit was deeided by Judge Nelson, in this court, in September, 1879, (First Nat. Bank qf Hannibal v. Smith, supra, 215;) and this bill, in effect, asks for a review of that decision. The present proceeding is a creditor's bill to enforce a sort of equitable garnishment. Now, I have never seen a case of a creditor's bill, or a garnishment, when brought under the ordinary practice of either law or equity, in which the principal debtor was not made a party defendant when it was possible. Of course, the defendant may be absent, or eut of reach ; and, as I said before, one of the most important uses of a garnish- ment is to apply the property of an absent debtor to the pay- ment of his debts within the territorial jurisdiction of the court; but the usages or the statutes by which the courts work out this resuit give them a jurisdiction in rem which the statutes of the United States deny to the cii-cuit courts, in suits at law or in equity, excepting as aboye mentioned. This distinction must be kept in mind in examining the cases. In a court of general jurisdiction, the presence of the debtor is admitted to be necessary, but an artificial or eonstructive presence, or a supposed contumacy, is substituted for act- ual presence; and this is what the circuit courts cannot effect. �The corporation is a necessary party, actual or eonstruct- ive, because it will not else be bound by the decree, and the other defendants may be twice vexed. It has also the right to show that the judgments against it have been satisfied, or that it has the means for satisfying them without further assessment. As a rule in equity it may be stated more broadly that the suit is one which, if the allegations of the bill are true, the corporation was bound to institute; and if it fails to do so, it is a necessary party on one side or the other of the suit, in order that its rights in its own assets may be properly cared for. See Cunningham v. Pell, 5 Paige, ��� �