In re Equitable Trust Co. of New York

March 6, 1916, was the first day of the March term of the District Court for the Northern District of California, Second Division, over which Hon. William C. Van Fleet presides. Fifteen days before that, to wit, on the 21st of February, 1916, he had made an order directing that the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company and the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company be made parties defendant to and respectively interplead in a suit theretofore brought in said court by the Equitable Trust Company of New York, as trustee, against the Western Pacific Railway Company, to foreclose a first mortgage given by the latter company to the trust company to secure a bond issue of $50,000,000, and also enjoining the trust company from proceeding with a certain dependent suit it had theretofore brought in the state of New York in respect to some of the property covered by the mortgage.

Claiming that the order directing the making of the Denver & Rio Grande Company and Missouri Pacific Company parties to the suit and the injunctive order were beyond the power of the court to make, and were therefore void, the complainant in the suit, based upon a stipulation of all of the parties thereto purporting to…