Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/851

 HUTCHINSON ». GEEBN. 88O �doubted authority it may order the property to be delivered by the receiver to the assignee, It is, indeed, manifest that the apprehension on the part of complainants that the state court will so order, was the moving cause of the institution of the present suit. It appears from the record before us that in the course of the proceedings in the state court, the borporation, the receiver, and the assignee ail being present in court and fully heard, that court decided that it is its duty to determine to •whom the property shall be delivered when the receiver shall be discharged. In this I have no doubt that court is right. It has jurisdiction of the property and of the parties claiming it. It may be that the assignee is not an officer of the state court in the same sense as if ap- pointed by the court; but it is manifest that, from the moment an aseignment is made under the state laws, the assignee ib for many purposes subject to the orders of the state court. This is, however, not very material here, for it appears that the assignee has actually appeared in the state court to claim the property, and is now clairoing it in that forum, and that the state court has decided that as the record now stands in that court he is entitled to it. It wonld cer- tainly be a most unseemly interference on our part to attempt at this stage of the proceeding to take the control of the property ont of the hands of that court. Suppose we should, by a preliminary injunction, restrain the assignee from acting under the assignment and from taking the property, what right or authority have we to forbid the state court to order the property delivered to the assignee? It is the plain duty of that court, when it cornes to discharge its receiver, to determine and direct him as to the disposition of the property in his hands. How can we enjoin the assignee from receiv- ing the property without interf ering with a disposition of it •which the state court may make and has a perfect right to make in the exercise of its prior jurisdiction? We cannot, of course, say in advance that the state court will or will not order the property delivered to the assignee. If it has juris- diction to so order, and viay so order, that is enough. We must recognize and respect the right of the court to deter- ��� �