Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/144

 182 FEDESAIi BEFOBTEB. �will lie dcprived of their just rights, and will sufler irreparable damage thereby ; that as the two companies have no legal power to make said contract of lease, all the guaranties and covenants made by and between the parties thereto will be null and void, and all the guaranties and cov- enants made by the Bichmond Company for the payment of interest or dividends upon stocks wUl be null and void, and said contract cannot be consummated and enforced by the Atlanta Company should default be made by the Richmond Company in the performance of any of the cov- enants or agreements therein contained ; and that the transfer of the saia property of the Atlanta Company to the Richmond Company by said lease or agreement would impair the security which the plaintiils have as own- ers of said bonds, and would diminish their value and destroy the rights of the plaintiffsunder them, cnd the control over said property which the plaintifls now have as such bondholders, to their great and irreparable in- jury. The prayer of the complaint is for judgment that the defendants be each and all enjoined from executing the said lease or agreement, and from delivering over to the Richmond Company the said Atlanta & Char- lotte Air-Line Railroad, or the possession or use thereof, or any part thereof, and from making or carrying out any agreement between the said two companies, or doing any act towards or in furtherance thereof. �On the petition of the Atlanta Company the state court made an order on the ninfch of April, 1881, removing the suit into this court. The petition sets forth the citizenship and residence of the individual parties when the suit was brought, and still, to be as above stated, and the facts as aboye stated as to the corporate existence of the two companies. It sets forth the purpose of the suit to be according to the foregoing prayer of the complaint. It states that the petitioner and the other defendants deny that the plaintiffs are entitled to such judgment, or to any judgment, against them; that in the suit there is a controversy between the plaintiffs and the petitioner and the Eichmond Company, and that there is a controversy in said suit which is wholly between eitizens of different states, to-wit, between the plaintiffs and the peti- tioner and the Eichmond Company, which can be fully de- termined as between them ; that the defendants, other than the petitioner and the Eichmond Company, are such only as ofiQeers and directors of the petitioner, and no judgment or relief is sought against them except in that capacity, and they are merely nominal parties to said suit ; and that some of the individual defendants have been served with the sum- mons therein, but the Eichmond Company bas not been ��� �