The controversies here involved arise in a suit in equity brought November 3, 1924, in the federal court for the Southern District of West Virginia by the Piedmont Coal Company, a Pennsylvania corporation, and three persons, inhabitants of Pennsylvania, against the Tower Hill Connellsville Coke Company of West Virginia, a corporation organized under the laws of that state. The plaintiffs own 4,000 common and 10,850 preferred shares of its stock. August 25, 1932, the court entered a decree that defendant's business be wound up and its properties converted into money and distributed to its creditors and shareholders, appointed petitioners receivers, and directed a special master to state an account and to report to the court all claims against defendant. Respondents have presented claims. Petitioners oppose their demands and by counterclaims ask affirmative relief.
1. When a claimant appears before a master in a federal receivership proceeding and proves a claim to share in the distribution of the receivership res, does he submit himself to the jurisdiction of the receivership court for the adjudication of his liability to the res, when the counterclaim asserted against him by the receiver is of a nature cognizable in equity and its adjudication is essential to a final disposition of the receivership proceeding?
2. Is not the adjudication of the counterclaim against the claimant and the determination of the whole controversy within the purpose and intendment of Equity Rule 30?
The Tower Hill Connellsville Coke Company, a Pennsylvania corporation, operated coal mines and coke plants. The West Virginia Tower Hill, by issue of its stock to the stockholders of the Pennsylvania Tower Hill, acquired all the share capital of the latter and until January 8, 1930, was merely a holding company owning only that stock. In April, 1920, Thompson Connellsville Coke Company, a Pennsylvania corporation, purchased a majority, about 28,000 shares, of the common stock of the West Virginia Tower Hill. Respondent Hillman, an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, was president of and controlled the purchasing company. Respondents Sheets and Watson of that state were also its officers. Hillman became president and Sheets and Watson became officers of both Tower Hill Companies. In June, 1920, the Eastern Coke Company was organized under Pennsylvania law; Hillman became its president and Sheets and Watson were given other offices. They caused the Pennsylvania Tower Hill to subscribe for 51 per cent. of the common shares, and later it acquired the rest. The three individual respondents were also directors of the Tower Hill Companies, the Eastern Company and the two corporate respondents, the Hillman Coal & Coke Company and the Hecla Coal & Coke Company. Hillman, with the other two acting under his direction, dominated these five corporations. The corporations maintained joint general offices and joint sales, operating, and engineering departments.
The preferred stock of the West Virginia Tower Hill was, in preference to the common, entitled to cumulative dividends at the annual rate of $6 per share, and, upon distribution of assets, par plus unpaid dividends. In 1924 the company paid $9, leaving then accumulated $97.50 per share. No other dividend has been paid. The stockholders' bill alleged that, ever since Hillman took control, the Pennsylvania Tower Hill had sufficient resources to pay a dividend out of which the West Virginia Tower Hill could make a payment on account of its own preferred stock but that the directors of the former fraudulently refused to declare any dividend, and that it was intended to exhaust the resources of both companies without paying anything to stockholders of the latter. It prayed the appointment of receivers empowered to take the shares of Pennsylvania Tower Hill and vote them at meetings of the company's stockholders and to demand that it declare dividends, to procure appointment of ancillary receivers in Pennsylvania and, if found necessary to bring suits there.