Boyle v. Schindel

Bowie, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The primary and principal question presented on this appeal, decisive of all others in the case, is whether an action at law can be maintained in this State to recover a sum of money decreed to he paid hy a Court of equity within the same jurisdiction. The general principle, that actions at law will lie on decrees of other States for the payment of money only ⁴ out of aud beyond their jurisdiction, is well established by authority both in England and the United States, but, broad propositions, originating in cases of this character, have been adopted and used by Judges aud text writers, so as to produce some confusion. It was a cardinal rule of the Courts of law in England, that no action at law should be brought to enforce a decree in Chancery within its jurisdiction, but such actions were allowed and maintained on decrees of colonial Courts.

The reason is obvious, that in the one case there was full power existing in the Court which rendered the decree, to enforce it, and in the other the decree would be ineffectual, unless the Courts of law recognized them as evidences of debt and made them effective by judgment and execution. The leading cases cited and relied on by both appellant and appellee are Hugh vs. Higgs and Wife, 8 Wheaton, 697 ; Pennington vs. Gibson, 16 Howard, 65 , and Richardson vs. Jones, 3 G. & J., 186 . The case of Hugh vs. Higgs was decided by that eminent jurist, Chief Justice Marshall, all of whose opinions, however brief, are entitled to the most profound respect. His opinion relating to this subject is substantially as follows : “ This is an action on the case brought to recover the money which the plaintiff in error had been decreed by a Court of Chancery to pay to the defendant in error.

The defendant in the Court below contended that an action at common law did not lie on a decree in chancery, and excepted to the opinion of that Court overruling this objection. It is admitted by the opposite counsel that in general the action does not lie to recover money claimed under the decree of a Court of equity, but he supposed that in this case the money had been received by the defendant below upon transactions which took place after the decree. Upon examining the record, we perceive the ⁵ money was in his hands as trustee at the time the order to pay it over was made.” The case of Pennington vs. Gibson was an action of deht brought in the Circuit Court of the U. S. for the district of Maryland by the defendant in error, against the plaintiff in error, on a decree obtained by the former against the latter and others in the Supreme Court, in equity, of the State of New York, and carried by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States. 'The chief question before the Court was, whether the decree of a Court of equity of another State was of such dignity and finality that an action of debt could be maintained on it, without averring in the narr. that the decree was in the State in which it was rendered, of equal efficiency, as a judgment at law. The Supreme Court held the affirmative, and the judgment of the Court below was sustained.

The objection, that the remedy was in equity and ^not at law, on a decree of a Court of equity within its own jurisdiction, was incidentally considered. Although not necessary to the decision, the Court announced the following postulate : “We lay it down, therefore, as the general rule, that in every instance in which an action of debt can be maintained upon a judgment at law for a sum of money awarded by such judgment, the like action can he maintained upon a decree in equity, which is for an ascertained and specific amount and nothing more; and that the record of proceedings in the one case must be ranked with and responded to as of the same dignity and binding' obligation with the record in the other.” Notwithstanding the strictures of the learned Judge in commenting on Hugh vs. Higgs and Wife, he declares,