1. The creditors of an indebted corporation may have the aid of
a court of equity against such corporation and its debtors to
compel the collection of what is due to it and the payment of the
debt it owes.
2. Where a bill for that purpose is brought by some of the
creditors and prosecuted to a decree, and afterwards other
creditors get judgments and are permitted by the court to come in
as parties, with the averment that there are also other debtors of
the corporation, who should be compelled to pay for their benefit,
the Court cannot make a decree settling the principle of the
distribution until the assets are collected and the amounts
received from the different classes of debtors ascertained.
3. A decree made before the funds of the corporation are
collected that all the honeys recovered or to be recovered shall be
distributed among the original complainants, and the several
persons who have filed their petitions to be made parties, and
appointing a master to state an account is not a final decree in
the cause.
4. If the original complainants appeal from such a decree on the
ground that it is unjust to them, the appeal must be dismissed as
premature.
5. The Court will not be in a condition to make a final decree
until all the facts upon which the rights of the parties depend are
ascertained.
MR. JUSTICE GRIER.
When this case came before us on a
Page 67 U. S. 540
former occasion,
see 63 U. S. 22 How.
380, the decree of the circuit court dismissing the bill was
reversed and the record remanded with instructions to that court to
enter a decree for the complainants against the respondents
severally for such amount as should appear was due and unpaid by
each of them on their several shares of the capital stock of the
Knox Insurance Company, and to have such other and further
proceedings as to justice and right might appertain.
At the May Term 1860 of the circuit court, a decree was entered
in conformity with the judgment of this Court ascertaining the
amount of the judgments due by the Insurance Company to the several
complainants, and the several amounts due by each of the
stockholders, respondents to the company. At the next November
Term, divers other creditors of the Company filed their petitions
setting forth that they also had become judgment creditors of the
company and praying to be made parties to the bill, and suggesting
that there were other persons indebted to the company "whose
indebtedness ought to be paid for the benefit of the petitioners,"
that the amount found to be due from those against whom a decree
has already been rendered was insufficient to liquidate the claims
of the petitioners and other parties entitled to participate in the
distribution of said funds, and praying that a receiver might be
appointed to receive and collect from the persons so indebted the
amounts due by them, respectively &c. The court then appointed
a receiver according to the request of petitioners. But before the
funds of the company were collected on the 7th of December, the
court entered a decree that all the moneys recovered or to be
recovered under the decree made at last term be distributed among
the original complainants and the several persons who had filed
their petitions, praying to be made parties, complainants &c.
and appointing a master to state an account, &c.
The appellants contend that this decree is erroneous and unjust
to the original petitioners. This may possibly be found to be true
when the proper time comes to have it reviewed. But the appeal as
well as the decree is premature. There is no final
Page 67 U. S. 541
decree in the case. After the assets are all collected by the
receiver, so that the master may ascertain the amount to be
distributed, the question now proposed will be properly raised and
decided on exceptions to the master's report. That report should
state the amount of assets to be distributed, the amount collected
from the original defendants, also the other amounts collected by
the Receiver from persons not in the decree; whether the amounts
collected from the parties respondent are sufficient to pay each of
the original parties complainant. If not, how much to each; how
much other assets have been collected by the receiver, and how much
would be coming to each creditor on the hypothesis that all the
assets are to be divided among all the creditors equally.
With these facts ascertained, the court will be in a condition
to make a final decree which can be reviewed by this Court, but not
till then.
The appeal is therefore premature, and must be
Dismissed.