The Texas & Pacific Railway Company is a corporation deriving its corporate powers from acts of congress, and was held in Pacific Railroad Removal Cases, 111 U.S. 1, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1113, to be entitled, under the act of March 3, 1875, to have suits brought against it in the state courts removed to the circuit courts of the United States on the ground that they were suits arising under the laws of the United States. The reasoning was that this must be so since the company derived its powers, functions, and duties from those acts, and suits against it necessarily involved the exercise of those powers, functions, and duties as an original ingredient.
These receivers were appointed by the circuit court, and derived their powerfrom and discharged their duties subject to its orders. Those orders were entered, and all action of the court in the premises taken, by virtue of judicial power possessed and exercised under the constitution and laws of the United States.
In respect of liability, such as is set up here, the receiver stands in the place of the corporation. As observed by Mr. Justice BROWN, delivering the opinion of the court in McNulta v. Lochridge, 141 U.S. 327, 331, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 11: 'Actions against the receiver are in law actions against the receivership, or the funds in the hands of the receiver, and his contracts, misfeasances, negligences, and liabilities are official, and not personal, and judgments against him as receiver are payable only from the funds in his hands.'
Hence it has been often decided that the jurisdiction of the court appointing a receiver is necessarily exclusive, and that actions at law cannot be prosecuted against him except by leave of that court. Barton v. Barbour, 104 U.S. 126; Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203; Thompson v. Scott, 4 Dill, 508, 512.
This was the general rule in the absence of statute, but by the third section of the act of congress of March 3, 1887, (24 St. p. 552, c. 373,) as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888, (25 St. pp. 433, 436, c. 866,) it is provided— 'That every receiver or manager of any property, appointed by any court of the United States, may be sued in respect of any act or transaction of his in carrying on the business connected with such property, without the previous leave of the court in which such receiver or manager was appointed; but such suit shall be subject to the general equity jurisdiction of the court in which such receiver or manager was appointed, so far as the same shall be necessary to the ends of justice.'
And we are of opinion that although the injury was inflicted January 6, 1887, the suit, which was commenced on the 3d of September of that year, comes within the section.
McNulta v. Lochridge, supra, was an action brought in a state court July 13, 1887, against the receiver of a railway, to recover for the death of certain persons, alleged to have been caused by his negligence in the operation of the road, on January 15, 1887. No leave to sue had been granted by the court of the appointment of the receiver, but we held that section 3 applied, and there was no foundation for the position that the receiver was not liable to suit without such permission.
'That the last paragraph of section five of the act of congress approved March third, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, entitled 'An act to determine the jurisdiction of circuit courts of the United States and to regulate the removal of eauses from state courts, and for other purposes.' and section six hundred and forty of the Revised Statutes, and all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions of this act, be, and the same are hereby, repealed: provided, that this act shall not affect the jurisdiction over or disposition of any suit removed from the court of any state, or suit commenced in any court of the United States, before the passage hereof, except as otherwise expressly provided in this act.'
It is argued that, under this proviso, the receivership suit, having been commenced before and being pending at the time of the passage of the act, was excepted from its provisions, and that leave to sue was still required. We do not think so. The proviso was intended to prevent the loss of jurisdiction by reason of the repeal of prior acts and parts of acts, but it does not limit the operation of the express provisions of section 3.