Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/462

 e5Q fBIOlBAL BEPOBTBB. �Ordinarily thia court wpald feel bound to adopt and follow the riile laid down by the supreme court in Nat. Bank v. Grand Lodge, supra; but, under the peculiar circumstances of the present case, I am clearly of the opinion that I ought to apply the rule established by the supreme court of the state of Minnesota. It wHl be observed that the plaintiff assumed and agreed, in consideration of the sale to him of the stock of goods, etc., to pay certain debts held by the baijk against Forbes. In so far as the debts are the property of th& bank, it is certain that they can be sued upon only in the state courts; for it appears that the bank is a corpora- tion pf the state of Minnesota, and the plaintiff a citizen of that state. How many of these debts belong to the bank, aijd how many to other parties represented by the bank, and how many of such other parties are citizens of Minnesota, does: not appear> nor is it material ; it is enough to say that certaiinly a part, and probably the whole, of said debts could only bo collected by suit in the state courts. It may be that Bome of the claims are for less than $500, and for that rea- son not within the jurisdiction of this court. I must assume, thorefore, that, in case plaintiff refuses to pay said claims, suits must be brought, certainly upon some of them, and probably upon all of them, in the courts of Minnesota. �So far as those courts are concerned, as already seen, the law is settled by repeated decisions of the supreme court, and, in accordance therewith, the plaintiff would be held liable in a suit by the payee of any of said debts. The ques- tion therefore is, shall this court hold that the creditors of Forbes are entitled to recover from plaintiff the sum of those debts, in this case, and thus subject him to a second pay- ment of the same amount to the holders of the claims ? . A decision which vould establish injustice such as this, is not, I am sure, required at my hands. It is true that this case does not belong to the class in which, as a rule, the federal courts are required to follow the decisions of the highest judicial tribunal of the state. But, although the question is a new one, I am clearly of the opinion that, even on questions purely of commercial law, the federal courts ��� �