An award against the United States of nearly $200,000 having been made to one A. R. McDonald, a British subject, by the mixed commission appointed under the treaty of 1871, his bankrupt assignee, Thomas J. Phelps, filed a bill in the supreme court of the District of Columbia to restrain him from collecting the money, and to have it made subject to his debts, making one White also a defendant, who claimed to have purchased the claim. A restraining order, and subsequently a preliminary injunction, was granted according to the prayer of the bill, and George W. Riggs was appointed a receiver to collect and hold the money until the further order of the court. In the mean time a bill was filed by Charles E. Hovey and William Dole (the present appellants) against McDonald and White, setting up a lien upon one-fourth of the fund under an alleged agreement by which they were to receive that proportion as compensation for their services in aiding the prosecution of the claim, and praying that the lien might be established, and that the defendants might be enjoined from collecting or receiving more than three-fourths of the award. A preliminary injunction was also granted in accordance with the prayer of this bill. On the sixteenth of February, 1875, the following consent decree, or order, was made, to-wit:
'In the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.
'THOMAS J. PHELPS, Assignee, v. AUGUSTINE R. MCDONALD and WILLIAM WHITE. (In Equity. No. 3,910.)
'This cause came on to be further heard on this sixteenth day of February, A. D. 1875; and thereupon, and upon consideration thereof, and with the consent of the parties to this suit, and of Charles E. Hovey and William P. Dole, parties complainant in a certain cause in equity in this court, numbered 3,937, against the same defendants, and claiming one-fourth of the award in the proceedings mentioned:
'It is, this sixteenth day of February, A. D. 1875, ordered, adjudged, and decreed— '(1) That the restraining orders heretofore made in both said causes are hereby vacated.
'(2) That the decree made in this cause on the twenty-eighth day of December, A. D. 1874, appointing George W. Riggs, Esq., receiver, and granting a provisional injunction, is modified as follows, viz.: That the defendant William White may receive from the agents of the British government the one-half of the net amount of the award in the proceedings mentioned, free and discharged of all claims of the plaintiffs in both the causes above mentioned, to enable the said defendant to pay the expenses incurred by the defendant A. R. McDonald in the prosecution of this claim; which sum of one-half of said award the court finds to be the reasonable expense incident to the prosecution of the said claim by said defendant A. R. McDonald before said mixed commission, exclusive of said claim of Hovey & Dole.
'(3) That the remaining half of the net amount of said award shall be paid to the said George W. Riggs; and it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the defendants shall execute all such orders, receipts, and acquittances necessary to enable the said George W. Riggs to collect the same. And the said George W. Riggs shall hold the said half of the said award subject to the claims, liens, and rights of the said Charles E. Hovey and William P. Dole and of the plaintiff in this cause, to be determined by the further decree of this court in this cause, and in the cause of said Hovey & Dole, hereinbefore mentioned. It is further ordered that said receiver be directed to invest the money so placed in his hands in bonds of the United States, or in 3 65-100 bonds of the District of Columbia, guarantied by the United States, as he may deem best for the interest of the parties concerned, and that a copy of this decree be filed in this last-mentioned cause.'
This decree was carried out; the money was collected from the agent of the British government, one-half of it being received by Mr. Riggs as receiver, and the suits progressed in due course. Both bills were demurred to, and both demurrers were sustained, and the bills dismissed by the court in special term.
In the case of Hovey and Dole a decree was entered on Thursday, the twenty-fourth of June, 1875, simply decreeing that the demurrer to the bill be sustained, and that the bill be dismissed, with costs. An appeal to the general term was entered the same day on the minutes of the court.