US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

A suit instituted by a creditor of a corporation, on his own behalf and on behalf of other unsecured creditors, to set aside a conveyance of its real estate and a mortgage of its personal property, both made by the corporation in trust to secure certain preferred creditors, including among them a director of the corporation, and also to procure a dissolution of the corporation and the closing up of its business, is a suit brought to remove an encumbrance or lien or cloud upon the title to such property within the meaning of § 8 of the Act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 472, c. 137, which authorizes a circuit court of the United States to summon in an absent defendant and to exercise jurisdiction over his rights in the property in suit within the jurisdiction of the court. chanrobles.com-red

Page 131 U. S. 353

It is not necessary that the creditor of an insolvent corporation should obtain judgment on his claim and take out execution and exhaust his remedies at law in order to invoke the jurisdiction of a court of equity in his favor to remove an encumbrance or cloud or lien upon the title of the corporation's property under the Act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 470, c. 137.