This suit was brought by the defendants in error against the plaintiff in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
The proceeding was by petition in the usual form of Louisiana practice. It states that the plaintiff in error, in the capacity of trustee and assignee of the President, Directors, and Company of the Agricultural Bank of Mississippi, which was located, until the term of its dissolution at Natchez, in the said State, is indebted to the petitioners in the sum of $34,000, upon the grounds set forth in the petition.
They state that they were the owners of two undivided third parts of a certain lot in Natchez, in the county of Adams, in the State of Mississippi, upon which stands the City Hotel; that they were unlawfully expelled from it by the Agricultural Bank; that they afterwards recovered back the possession by an action of ejectment in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Mississippi; and that they are entitled to the sum above mentioned, against the bank, for damages and mesne profits while the bank held them out of possession together with the costs they incurred in the suit to recover it.
They further state, that by the decree of the Circuit Court of Adams County, a court of competent jurisdiction in the premises, the charter of the Agricultural Bank was declared forfeited, and the corporation dissolved; and that Peale, the plaintiff in error, was appointed trustee and assignee of the bank, and is the sole legal representative of the corporation; and they aver, that by operation of law all the assets of the corporation are vested in him as assignee, and that he became legally liable to the creditors to the extent of the assets which may come to his hands; and that he has assets in his possession, sufficient to pay all the debts of the corporation.
The plaintiff in error filed sundry exceptions and an answer to this petition. His 2d exception denies the jurisdiction of the court, upon the ground that, as trustee for the bank, he is not amenable to any other court than the one that appointed him. As we think this exception decisive against the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of Louisiana, it is not necessary in this opinion to set out the other exceptions, or to notice the claims he set up by the way of answer and reconvention, if his exceptions were overruled.
There is an agreement between the counsel of the respective parties, which admits substantially the facts stated in the petition, as respects the possession and recovery of the hotel in the suit in ejectment, and the appointment of plaintiff in error as trustee upon the forfeiture of the charter of the bank; and also that the defendants had presented this claim to the commissioners appointed in Mississippi to audit claims against the bank, and that they had refused to allow it. There are other admissions, in relation to the annual value of the lot and hotel, and the costs and expenses of the suit in ejectment, and also in relation to other things which are not material to this decision, and need not therefore be particularly stated. The case proceeded; and at the hearing of the exceptions they were all overruled, and a decree was finally passed against Peale as trustee and representative of the President, Directors, and Company of the Agricultural Bank, directing him to pay to the petitioners the sum of $20,058, with interest thereon at the rate of five per cent. until paid-and that the petitioners have execution therefor, upon the property, assets, goods and chattels, rights and credits of the said President, Directors, and Company of the Agricultural Bank of Mississippi, then in the hands of the said Peale, as trustee, or which might thereafter come to his hands.
It is to revise this judgment that the present writ of error is brought.
The power, duties, and responsibilities of the plaintiff in error, as trustee, are regulated by the laws of Mississippi.