Opinion of the Court. Ohio courts had authority to restrain a citizen of the county in which the equity action was commenced, from proceeding in another State to attach the earnings of such head of a family, with a view to evade the exemption laws of Ohio, and to prevent him from availing himself of the benefit of such law. To the same effect is Keyser v. Rice, 47 Maryland, 203. The Court of Appeals of Maryland declared the power of the State to compel its own citizens to respect its laws, even beyond its own territorial limits, to be supported by the great preponderance of precedent and authority; and sustained an injunction to restrain the further prosecution in another State of an attachment, by which the defendant sought to recover wages due the complainant in Maryland and there exempt from attachment. So in Burlington and Missouri Railroad v. Thompson, 31 Kansas, 180, though it was held that a foreign corporation doing business in Kansas might be garnisheed for a debt due to a non-resident employé, contracted outside of the State, and exempt from garnishment in the State where the defendant and garnishee resided, yet it was conceded by Judge Brewer, in delivering the opinion, "that in the courts of a State any citizen of that State may be enjoined from resorting to the courts of any other State for the purpose of evading the exemption laws of his own State;" and this was so decided in Zimmerman v. Franke, 34 Kansas, 650. In Wilson v. Joseph, 107 Indiana, 490, the Supreme Court of Indiana ruled that an injunction would lie to restrain a resident of Indiana from prosecuting an attachment proceeding against another resident in the courts of another State, in violation of a statute which made it an offence to send a claim against a debtor out of the State for collection, in order to evade the exemption law. And see Chaffee v. Quidnick Company, 13 R. I. 442, 449; Great Falls Manufacturing Co. v. Worster, 23 N. H. (3 Foster) 462; Pickett v. Ferguson, 45 Arkansas, 177. The rule is not otherwise in New York. It is true that in Mead v. Merritt, 2 Paige, 402, 404, the chancellor said: "I am not aware that any court of equity in the Union has deliberately decided that it will exercise the power, by process of in Opinion of the Court. junction, of restraining proceedings which have been previously commenced in the courts of another State." And the reason urged against the exercise of the power was that if the courts of one State should see fit to enjoin proceedings in another, the latter might retaliate in like manner in enjoining proceedings in the first, and thus give rise to an endless conflict of jurisdiction. But this reasoning has not commended itself to the judicial mind, for the injunction is not directed to the courts of the other State, but simply to the parties litigant, and although the power should be exercised with care, and with a just regard to the comity which ought to prevail among coördinate sovereignties, yet its existence cannot at this day be denied. In Vail v. Knapp, 49 Barb. 299, 305, an injunction was continued against citizens of New York, plaintiffs in attachment suits in Vermont, upon the ground that they were proceeding in Vermont in evasion of the laws of New York; and the court points out that, though as a general rule the courts of New York decline to interfere by injunction to restrain its citizens from proceeding in an action which has been commenced in a sister State, citing Mead v. Merritt, 2 Paige, 402; Burgess v. Smith, 2 Barb. Ch. 276, and other cases, yet "there are exceptions to this rule, and when a case is presented, fairly constituting such exception, extreme delicacy should not deter the court from controlling the conduct of a party within its jurisdiction to prevent oppression or fraud. No rule of comity or policy forbids it." The same result was announced in Dinsmore v. Neresheimer, 32 Hun, 204, where the Supreme Court of New York held that an express company could maintain an action in New York to restrain the defendant, a resident of the State of New York, from prosecuting actions against the company in the District of Columbia, brought to avoid a decision of the Court of Appeals of New York, differing from the rule upon the same subject in the District of Columbia. In Erie Railway Co. v. Ramsey, 45 N. Y. 637, the Court of Appeals, speaking through Folger, J., treats the general ques tion as not admitting of doubt. Opinion of the Court. At the time of these proceedings, as for many years before, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had an elaborate system of insolvent laws, designed to secure the equal distribution of the property of its debtors among their creditors. Under these insolvent laws all preferences were avoided, and all attachments in favor of particular creditors dissolved. The transfer of the debtor's property to his assignees in insolvency extended to all his property and assets, wherever situated. This was expressly provided as to such as might be outside of the State. By one of the sections of the chapter of the Public Statutes of Massachusetts treating of this subject, the debtor was required to do all acts necessary to give the assignees power to "demand, recover and receive all the estate and effects so assigned, especially any part thereof which is without this State." Mass. Pub. Stat. 1882, c. 157, § 74. Whenever the debtor had made, to the satisfaction of the judge in insolvency, a full transfer and delivery of all his estate, and conformed to the directions and requirements of the law, he was entitled to be absolutely and wholly discharged from his debts, with certain exceptions; but it was provided that a discharge should not be granted to a debtor whose assets did not pay fifty per cent of the claims proved against his estate, unless upon the assent in writing of a majority in number and value of his creditors who had proved their claims. §§ 80, 86. Nothing can be plainer, than that the act of Butler, Hayden & Co. in causing the property of the insolvent debtors to be attached in a foreign jurisdiction, tended directly to defeat the operation of the insolvent law in its most essential features, and it is not easy to understand why such acts could not be restrained, within the practice to which we have referred. But for the attachment suits the assignees in insolvency could have collected the claim of Bird against Claflin & Co., but could not have intervened in those suits and asked of the courts of New York the enforcement of their title. The rule in that State is, that by the comity of nations, the statutory title of foreign assignees in bankruptcy is recognized and enforced when it can be done without injustice to the citizens of the State, and without prejudice to creditors pursuing their remedies Opinion of the Court. under the New York statutes, provided also that such title is not in conflict with the laws or public policy of the State, and that the foreign court had jurisdiction of the bankrupt. In re Waite, 99 N. Y. 433. Under such a rule it is evident that the remedy of the assignees was in equity and in the courts of their domicil. This is the conclusion reached in Kidder v. Tufts, 48 N. H. 121, 126, referred to by counsel for appellant. That was a case where citizens of Massachusetts commenced in New Hampshire an attachment against certain other citizens of the former State; proceedings in insolvency against the defendants were afterwards instituted in Massachusetts; and, subsequently to this, certain New Hampshire creditors attached the same property and then moved for a continuance to await the proceedings in insolvency, for the purpose of pleading the insolvent's discharge in bar of the first attachment. But the court denied the motion, holding that the Massachusetts creditors had availed themselves of their strict legal rights as established and allowed by the statute law of New Hampshire, and, for the purpose of an attachment, might properly be considered subjects of that state government; but the court added: "If the subsequent attaching creditors have a remedy, and can in any way prevent the plaintiffs from obtaining a preference, their appeal should be made, as creditors of the defendants, to the Massachusetts courts, which may exercise their jurisdiction over their own citizens if they have violated any of their laws by their experiment here." Hibernia Nat. Bank v. Lacombe, 84 N. Y. 367, 386. So in the case of Paine v. Lester, 44 Connecticut, 196, where a citizen of Rhode Island attached in Connecticut a debt due from a citizen of Connecticut to a corporation of Pennsylvania, which had made an assignment for the benefit of creditors, the lien of the attachment was held valid against the claim of the trustee in the assignment, because the right of the trustee in insolvency in Connecticut rested only on the comity which the court there could exercise or refuse to exercise at its discretion, while the plaintiff had a legal right, under the laws of Connecticut, to prosecute his suit. Opinion of the Court. In Rhawn v. Pearce, 110 Illinois, 350, the Supreme Court of Illinois declined to recognize at law the insolvent laws of Pennsylvania, by giving effect to a statutory assignment in that State, even as against an attaching creditor of the same. State with the debtor. But the same tribunal found no difficulty in holding, in Sercomb v. Catlin, 128 Illinois, 556, that the courts of Illinois, on the application of a receiver appointed by them, could enjoin a person within the jurisdiction of the court from interfering in respect to property belonging to an insolvent copartnership for which the receiver had been appointed, although that property was outside of the jurisdiction, and Chaffee v. Quidnick Co., 13 R. I. 442; Dehon v. Foster, 4 Allen, 545; and Vermont & Canada Railroad Co. v. Vermont Central Railroad Co., 46 Vermont, 792, were cited. Dehon v. Foster, 4 Allen, 545, is the leading case upon the subject, argued by eminent counsel on both sides, and decided upon great consideration. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, speaking through Bigelow, C. J., points out that the jurisdiction of a court, as a court of chancery, to restrain persons within its jurisdiction from prosecuting suits, upon a proper case made, either in the courts of Massachusetts or in other States or foreign countries, rests on the clear authority vested in courts of equity over persons within the limits of their jurisdiction and amenable to process, to stay acts contrary to equity and good conscience; and that, as the decree of the court in such cases is directed solely at the party, it is wholly immaterial that such party is prosecuting his action in the courts of another state or country. The action was a bill in equity to enjoin a citizen of Massachusetts from availing himself of an attachment of personal property in Pennsylvania, as against a debtor put into insolvency under thé laws of Massachusetts, and thus preventing the same from coming to the hands of the assignee. The court held that it was obvious that the controversy was simply as to the relative rights of citizens of Massachusetts to personal property belonging to insolvent debtors, domiciled in that state, and raised no question involving a conflict of rights |