Harold L. Ward v. Union Bond & Trust Company, a Corporation

Jurisdiction

These proceedings were instituted in the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California, Southern Division, by the Appellee, Union Bond & Trust Company, an Oregon corporation (Union) against Blue Creek Redwood Company, Inc., a dissolved Delaware corporation, Harold L. Ward, together wtih a number of individual defendants, all citizens and residents of the State of Michigan (Ward). The proceedings are of a civil nature, cognizable as a case in equity with the amount in controversy in excess of $4,000.

Statement of Case

In the language of the District Court, it was presented with “the troublesome question of the nature and extent of the power of this Court under uncertain California law, to mold a just and appropriate equity decree.”

On May 1, 1946, A. K. Wilson, the assignor of Union, as the buyer, and Blue Creek Redwood Company, Inc., aforesaid, the assignor of Ward, as seller, entered into a contract for the purchase and sale of certain timber lands in Humboldt County, California, at and for a total purchase price in the resulting aggregate amount of $750,000, to be paid at an established rate per thousand feet upon the removal of the…