Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/786

 772 FEDERAL REPORTER. �to the Keolvuk Northern Line Packet Company are adjudged to have Leen fraudaient and void. It oannot be that the established rules of equity practice would, onder these circumstances, compel complain- ants to institute separate suits againt the present defendants. �A leading authority upon ; this point of the case is Brinkerhoff v. Brown, 6 Johns. Ch. 139. That suit was by several complainants holding distinct judgments against an in solvant corporation. There were several defendants, all of •wiioni were sought.ito be held liable, in different proportions and in different characters, upon the general ground that the property of the corporation had been withdrawn firom the reaoh of complainants by the fraudulent acts of the several defendants. After analyzing thebill, Chancelier Kent said: . " It thu8 appears from the bill that all the defendants were not jointly con- cerned in every injurious act charged. There was a series of acts on the part of the persons concerned in the company, all produced by the same fraudulent intent, and terminating in the deception and injuryof the plaintifEs. The defendants performed different parts in the same drama, but it was still one piece, the entire performance, mariied by different scenes ; and the question now occurs whetlier the several matters charged are so distinct and uncon- nected as to render the joining'of them in one Mil a ground of demurrer." �Aftor reviewing the authorities, he remarks : �' " That the principle to be deduced from them is that a bill against several �persons must relate to matterc of^the same nature, and having a connection �with each other, and in which all the-defendants are more or less concerned, �though their rights in respect to the general subject of the case may be distinct." �Again he remarked : ; �"When we consider that the plaintiffs are judgment creditors, having claims against the Genesee Company perfectly estabUshed, and not the subject of litigation in this suit, and that the general right claimed by the bill is a due application of the capital of that company to the payment of their judg- ment ; that the subject of the bill and of the relief, and the only matter in litigation, is the fraud charged in tiie creation, management, and disposition of the capital, and in which charge all the defendants are implicated, though in different degreesand proportions, — I think we may saf ely conclude that this case falls within the reach of the principle, and that the demurrer cannot be sustained." �The case is cited with approval in Story, Eq. PL § 286, note, •where it is said that — �"The same principle bas been supposed properly to justify the joining of sev- eral judgment creditors in one bill against their common debtor, and his grantees, to remove impediments to their remedy created by the fraud of their debtor in conveying his property to several grantees, although they take by separate conveyances, and no joint fraud in any one transaction is charged against them ^." ��� �