Opinion of the Court.

my right; which conditions I was in hope would occur from time to time, but such conditions, in my judgment, were not realized at an earlier date than 1884."

Again, the following question was put to him by his own counsel: "You have been asked, substantially, why you continued your amicable relations with the company from the West after this evasion of Col. Lane in Philadelphia in 1876. It was also pointed out that you had not mentioned the matter to them from there. Please explain why this was so." His answer was: "I did not regard it as either right or prudent to have other than amicable relations with them so long as they had not actually refused to comply with the agreement of April, 1875. I did not write to them so as to bring up the issue, as I had neither the time nor the means at my command to enforce my rights in case of the refusal to comply with their agreement at that time."

The existence of any agreement in 1875 was strenuously denied by Col. Lane; but, conceding the plaintiff's version of the disputed facts to be true, he yet permitted eight years more to elapse before he made a hostile move. The "amicable relations" he desired to have continued were evidently those out of which he was receiving a salary of $2000 per annum a sum larger than he would have been entitled to if he had been in receipt of a royalty.

Courts of equity, it has often been said, will not assist one who has slept upon his rights, and shows no excuse for his laches in asserting them. The plaintiff's excuse, in this instance, that, he preferred for prudential reasons, to receive a salary from the defendant rather than to demand a royalty, is entitled to a less favorable consideration by a court of equity than if his conduct had been that of mere inaction.

We are, therefore, of opinion that the decree of the court below should be

Reversed, and the record remanded to the Circuit Court, with directions to dismiss the bill of complaint, and it is so ordered.

Statement of the Case.

MISSISSIPPI MILLS v. COHN.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA.

No. 27. Argued October 20, 23, 1893. - Decided November 13, 1893.

The jurisdiction of Federal courts, sitting as courts of equity, cannot be enlarged or diminished by state legislation.

Whether such a court has jurisdiction in equity over a particular case, will be determined by inquiring whether by the principles of common law and equity, as distinguished and defined in this country and in the mother country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, the relief sought in the bill was one obtainable in a court of law, or one which only a court of equity was fully competent to give. A creditors' bill, to subject property of the debtor fraudulently standing in the name of a third party to the payment of judgments against the debtor, is within the jurisdiction of a Federal court, sitting as a court of equity, although, in the courts of the State in which the Federal court sits, state legislation may have given the creditor a remedy at law. N. and S., being citizens of Louisiana, obtained a judgment in a court of the State against C., also a citizen of Louisiana, which they assigned to W. and L., citizens of Missouri. The assignees thereupon brought suit against C. in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Louisiana, putting the jurisdiction on the ground of diverse citizenship. Held, that under the provisions of § 1 of the act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 470, c. 137, which statute was in force when the suit was commenced, it could not be maintained.

The jurisdiction of this court in this case is limited by the act of February 25, 1889, 25 Stat. 693, c. 236, to the determination of the questions as to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.

THE facts in this case are as follows: On March 29, 1881, Joel Wood and William II. Lee, citizens of the State of Missouri, partners as Wood & Lee, obtained a judgment in the Eighth District Court of the parish of East Carroll, Louisiana, against Simon Cohn, a citizen of the State of Louisiana, for $539.25, with interest, for goods sold by them to him on October 30, 1880. On April 2, 1881, S. B. Newman and S. D. Stockman, composing the firm of S. B. Newman & Co., also obtained a judgment in the same court against said Cohn for

Opinion of the Court.

$24,282.16, which judgment, subject to a credit of $5452, the proceeds of certain attachment proceedings accompanying the action, was duly assigned to Wood & Lee. Newman and Stockman were both citizens of Louisiana. On November 30, 1885, Wood & Lee filed their bill in equity in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Louisiana against Simon Cohn, his wife Fannie Cohn, and his wife's mother, Henrietta Steinhardt, all citizens of Louisiana, the purpose and object of which was to set aside as fraudulent a judgment in favor of Mrs. Cohn against Simon Cohn, and to subject certain property standing in the name of Mrs. Steinhardt, and alleged to be the property in fact of Simon Cohn, to the payment of these judgments. On July 11, 1882, the Mississippi Mills, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Mississippi, obtained a judgment in the Eighth District Court of the parish of East Carroll, Louisiana, against Simon Cohn, for $751.46. On July 5, 1883, it commenced in that court a suit of substantially the same nature as that commenced by Wood & Lee; this suit was duly removed to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Louisiana. After such removal, and on October 29, 1886, these cases were consolidated by an order of the Circuit Court, and from that time on they proceeded as one case. Pleadings having been perfected and proofs taken, the consolidated case was submitted to the Circuit Court, and on July 18, 1889, a decree was entered dismissing the bills of plaintiffs for want of jurisdiction. To reverse this decree of dismissal, appellants have brought their appeal to this court.

Mr. Edward Cunningham, Jr., for appellants.

No appearance for appellees.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

No appearance has been made for the appellees in this court, and we should be at a loss to know the grounds for the decision

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of the Circuit Court were it not for the opinion of District Judge Boarman, before whom the case was heard, 39 Fed. Rep. 865, which gives his reasons for entering the decree of dismissal.

Rev.

It may be premised that no objection arises on account of the amount in controversy in either suit, for at the time these suits were brought the Circuit Court had jurisdiction where such amount exceeded the sum of five hundred dollars. Stat. § 629. Nor can there be any doubt of the jurisdiction of this court over the appeals of either appellant, treating them as separately appealing, because the case in the trial court involved the question of the jurisdiction of that court. 25 Stat. 693, act of February 25, 1889, c. 236. The decision of the Circuit Court was to the effect that no relief could be had in equity, because under the practice prescribed in that State there was a remedy by an action at law. We quote from the opinion:

"If it be true that Cohn, notwithstanding said purchases, transfers, etc., were ostensibly made by Mrs. Steinhardt, and the title of record is in her name, is the real owner of the property now sought to be subjected to the payment of Cohn's debts, the complainants have a well-known and adequate remedy at law to make the property liable for their claims.

"The issues made up by the pleadings and evidence involve fundamentally the title to, or the real ownership of, the property in question. The complainants charge that Cohn, in fact and law, is the owner thereof. The defendants deny his ownership, and contend that the sales were real sales to Mrs. Steinhardt. Such issues are not determinable in this court in equity proceedings. In the view and purpose of complainants' charges, Cohn now owns the property, and they have not presented or sought to present such an action as should be heard in equity, and it is ordered that their suit be dismissed.".

We are unable to concur in these views. It is well settled that the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, sitting as courts of equity, is neither enlarged nor diminished by state legislation. Though by it all differences in forms of action be abolished;

Opinion of the Court.

though all remedies be administered in a single action at law; and, so far at least as form is concerned, all distinction between equity and law be ended, yet the jurisdiction of the Federal court, sitting as a court of equity, remains unchanged. Thus, in Payne v. Hook, 7 Wall. 425, 430, it was said, citing several cases: "We have repeatedly held that the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States over controversies between citizens of different States cannot be impaired by the laws of the States, which prescribe the modes of redress in their courts, or which regulate the distribution of their judicial power.' If legal remedies are sometimes modified to suit the changes in the laws of the States, and the practice of their courts, it is not so with equitable. The equity jurisdiction conferred on the Federal courts is the same that the High Court of Chancery in England possesses; is subject to neither limitation or restraint by state legislation, and is uniform throughout the different States of the Union." And in McConihay v. Wright, 121 U. S. 201, 205: "The contention of the appellants, however, is that by the statute of West Virginia the complainant might have maintained an action of ejectment. Reference is made, in support of this contention, to the West Virginia Code of 1868, c. 90, to show that an action of ejectment in that State will lie against one claiming title to or interest in land, though not in possession. Admitting this to be so, it, nevertheless, cannot have the effect to oust the jurisdiction in equity of the courts of the United States as previously established. That jurisdiction, as has often been decided, is vested as a part of the judicial power of the United States in its courts by the Constitution and acts of Congress in execution thereof. Without the assent of Congress that jurisdiction cannot be impaired or diminished by the statutes of the several States regulating the practice of their own courts." See also Scott v. Neely, 140 U. S. 106; Cates v. Allen, 149 U. S. 451, in which a state statute, extending the jurisdiction of equity to matters of a strictly legal nature, was held inapplicable to the Federal courts, and unavailing to vest a like jurisdiction in such courts, sitting as courts of equity.

So, conceding it to be true, as stated by the learned judge,