their own courts within their jurisdiction. Instead of comity, this would be unfriendliness; for they ask us to aid them in a violation of their own law. Our own citizens would be protected against the extra-territorial act, in a proper case, because they are not bound by it, and our assistance given to the extra-territorial act, resting only in comity, would not be given at the expense of injustice to them. The case does not fall within the first clause, second section, of the fourth article of the constitution of the United States, that 'the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.' As to a citizen of Virginia, the appointment of a receiver in Virginia, binding on him there, is not set aside by this clause of the constitution. The equitable transfer of the debt there is binding on him here."' So, it has been lately held in Wisconsin that where, under voluntary proceedings for the dissolution of a corporation in another State, a receiver is appointed by a court of that State, and the creditors are enjoined from prosecuting actions against the corporation, the courts of Wisconsin will recognize the right of the receiver to collect debts due to the corporation by residents of Wisconsin, in preference to creditors of the corporation residing in the same State as the State of the receiver, who are seeking, in Wisconsin, to get a preference over other creditors. The court reasoned, as in the preceding case, that while the judicial transfer of the property of the corporation to the receiver in a foreign State, was not binding upon the citizens of Wisconsin, yet it was binding upon the citizens of the foreign State. "The question," said the court, "is one wholly between parties residing in New York, and bound by the proceedings in question, neither of whom is in any position to invoke the assistance of the courts of this State to defeat or deny full effect to the proceeding in New York, or the title resulting from it. It is clear that the adjudication of dissolution and the appointment of the receiver vesting in him the title to the chose in action in question, were binding on these parties, and the courts of New York would have en1 Bagby v. Atlantic &c. R. Co., 86 Pa. St. 291, 294.

forced the receiver's title had this controversy originated there. The plaintiff asks us to aid him in violating the law of his own State and evading the process of its courts."1

§ 7347. Distinction between Voluntary Assignments and Assigments in Invitum by Operation of Law. In respect of the question under consideration, a distinction is frequently taken between assignments made by the voluntary act of a foreign insolvent for the benefit of his creditors, and assignments made by operation of the law of the foreign jurisdiction, against his will. According to the best opinion, the voluntary assignment, if good by the law of the State or country where it is made, and if made in conformity with the law of the State or country within which the property is situated, is valid in the latter State or country, not on a principle of comity, but ex proprio vigore. It has even been held that a deed of assignment of real property, intended for the benefit of creditors, made and recorded according to the law of the State in which the property is situated, is good as against subsequently attaching creditors of the assignor, although the assignment may have been set aside by the courts of the State of his domicile. The question was regarded as not a question of comity, but of right. The court said: "It depends for its solution upon the principle that the jus disponendi is essential to the very idea of property. It concerns the right of every person, whether a citizen of this State or of another State, owning property in this State, freely to dispose of that property for a just and lawful purpose; and when such property is owned by an insolvent debtor, there can be no more just or lawful purpose than a disposition of it for the equal benefit of his creditors." But a judicial assignment of property does not operate ex proprio vigore beyond the lines of the State within which the assignment takes place, but operates in other States and countries ex comitate, and then only so far as

1 Gilman v. Ketcham, 84 Wis. 60; 3. c. 36 Am. St. Rep. 899; 54 N. W. Rep.395.

Smith's Appeal, 117 Pa. St. 30; 8. c. 104 Pa. St. 381, 387.

First Nat. Bank v. Hughes, 10

Mo. App. 7, 23.

not opposed to the laws and public policy of such State, or to the rights of its own citizens.1 The distinction above taken is brought out very clearly by Mr. Justice Story, thus: "It is therefore admitted that a voluntary assignment, by a party, made according to the law of his domicile, will pass the personal estate, whatever may be its locality, abroad as well as at home. The law distinguishes that which results from the exercise of power under the law, from that which comes from the free will of the party: the former is limited in its effect to the country where the law is in force, whilst the latter is given universal and general operation, under the comity of nations."2

§ 7348. Where the Receiver Adopts and Carries out the Contract of the Corporation. Where a foreign corporation has, at the time of passing into the hands of a receiver, an uncompleted contract for the doing of work or the furnishing of materials, and the receiver, under the direction of the court appointing him, adopts and carries out the contract and agrees with the other contracting party so to do, he is entitled to maintain an action against such contracting party to recover any unpaid balance of the agreed price; and it will be no defense that he is a receiver appointed by a court of a foreign jurisdiction, or that the defendant has been compelled to pay over such balance to a local creditor by process of garnishment, without having received notice from the receiver not to pay it. The reason is that, by the agreement between the receiver and the defendant, under which he went on and completed the contract, there had been a novation, and he had the same right to sue for the enforcement of the contract that any other foreign obligee in a contract has, and the trusts upon which he acted in the jurisdiction appointing him receiver were immaterial.❜

1 Ante, § 7338.

Story's Conflict of Laws, § 111. The distinction is also clearly stated in Smith's Appeal, 104 Pa. St. 381, 389, where the above language is quoted. See also Lowry v. Hall, 2 Watts & S. (Pa.) 129, 131; s. c. 37

Am. Dec. 495; Speed v. May, 17 Pa. St. 91; s. c. 55 Am. Dec. 540; Dundas v. Bowler, 3 McLean (U. S.), 397; Livermore v. Jenckes, 21 How. (U. S.) 126.

Cooke v. Orange, 48 Conn. 401; Blake Crusher Co. v. New Haven, 46 Conn. 473,

§ 7349. Not Chargeable as Garnishee or with Trustee Process. -It may be assumed that, if a receiver is so venturesome as to go out of the State in which he is appointed, he will not become chargeable, as garnishee, or under what is called in some of the New England States "trustee process," at the suit of creditors of the estate, in order to get payment in full, instead of presenting their claims for adjudication in the court whose officer he is, having them there allowed, and taking their pro rata share. Such was the law declared in Massachusetts in regard to an assignee, where a citizen of another State had executed therein an assignment of his goods there situated, to a citizen of Massachusets, in trust for the payment of his creditors, most of whom lived in such other State, to which assignment the creditors were not parties, but which nevertheless, by the law of the other State, was a valid assignment, and the goods were never brought into the State of Massachusetts. Here it was held that the assignee was not liable to be charged in Massachusetts, for the goods on a trustee process sued out by one of the creditors who was a citizen of Massachusetts.1

7350. Attachment in Foreign Jurisdiction a Contempt of Court. Where a receiver has been appointed, if a creditor of the jurisdiction in which he has been appointed, in violation of an injunction which accompanies his appointment, attaches property or funds in another State, of which the receiver would be entitled to possession under the principles of comity, there being no creditor in such other State,―he will be guilty of a contempt of the court appointing the receiver,

1 Wales v. Alden, 22 Pick. (Mass.) 245. It was said: "The trustee took the goods for a lawful purpose, and by a title indefeasible where the transaction took place, and under the laws of New York, to which he was amenable. He was bound, as well in conscience as by law, to execute the trust according to the terms of the conveyance under which he took the

property. His coming into this Commonwealth ought not to defeat such a conveyance and discharge him from his legal and conscientious obligations, even though it should be held that, if such an assignment had been made here, it could not hold against attaching creditors, a point which it is not necessary to decide." Ibid. 247, opinion by Shaw, C. J.

and punishable as such; and this principle has been applied where the receiver was appointed in the State of Illinois, and the attaching creditor was a corporation domiciled in the State of Connecticut, but which had a branch office in the State of Illinois, and the attachment was sued out by the manager of this branch office, in the District of Columbia, against property situated there, which had never been in the possession of the receiver, but to which he claimed the right of possession. It made no difference, in the opinion of the Illinois court, that the attachment suit was really prosecuted by the foreign corporation as plaintiff; since, under the laws of Illinois, the court had jurisdiction of actions against that corporation by service of process upon its resident agent. Nor was it a good objection that a foreign corporation could not be punished for contempt; since corporations can only be punished for contempt through their officers, or through those acting in aid of them. Nor was it necessary that the corporation itself, eo nomine, should have been made a party to the proceeding, because the manager of its branch office was the real actor.1

§ 7351. Appointing a Receiver of Property Situated in a Foreign Jurisdiction.-It has been said that where parties to an action both reside in one State, a court in that State has power to appoint a receiver to take possession of the property of a defendant in another State, and that the court will compel the defendant, by process in personam, to put the receiver in possession of the property; but it is conceded that the court would have no power to remove, or cause to be removed, other than by the method stated, personal property situated in another State, so as to bring it within the jurisdiction of the

1 Sercomb v. Catlin, 128 Ill. 556; 3. c. 15 Am. St. Rep. 147. That a corporation can only be punished for contempt through its officers or through those aiding and abetting it, see First Congregational Church v.

Muscatine, 2 Iowa, 69; Rapalje on Contempts, §§ 1, 48. See also, as to the punishment of a corporation for contempt, Golden Gate &c. Co. v. Superior Court, 65 Cal. 187; ante, § 6448, et seq.