Seaver v. Bigelows

SEAVER filed a creditor's bill against the defendants, in the Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois, setting forth a judgment against one of the defendants, for the sum of $839.48, and, he being insolvent, seeking to get satisfaction of it from a fund exceeding $2000 in the hands of another of the defendants who, it was charged, was in possession of the fund by fraud. Plimpton, who joined in the bill, set out a judgment for the sum of $988.47. The suit went to issue, and was heard on the pleadings and proofs, and a decree entered dismissing the bill. The case being now here on appeal, a question arose whether this court had jurisdiction, as the statute limiting appeals from the Circuit Court is confined to cases where the sum in dispute exceeds $2000, exclusive of costs.

Mr. E. S. Smith, in support of the jurisdiction:

The act of Congress allows appeals in equity, when the matter in dispute shall exceed the sum or value of two thousand dollars. The judgment is not the amount, as that is not in dispute, it having been fixed by the court at law. Therefore, the value of the property must be the sum in controversy. A decree, in cases of this kind, need not state the amount to be paid. The prayer in the bill, is to apply the property, fraudulently disposed of, to pay the sums fixed by the judgments. Freeman v. Howe is decisive. It was there held, that a bill filed on the equity side of the court to restrain or regulate judgments, or suits at law, in the same court, and thereby prevent any injustice or inequitable advantage, under mesne or final process, is not an original suit, but ancillary and dependent; supplementary merely to the original suit, out of which it had arisen.

The bill, in this case, was not filed as an original suit, but to aid the judgment at law.

Mr. Thomas Hoyne, contra.

Mr. Justice NELSON delivered the opinion of the court.