the form of the remedy, or to modify it otherwise, as they may see fit, provided no substantial right secured by the contract is thereby impaired. No attempt has been made to fix definitely the line between alterations of the remedy, which are to be deemed legitimate, and those which, under the form of modifying the remedy, impair substantial rights. Every case must be determined upon its own circumstances. Whenever the result last mentioned is produced the act is within the prohibition of the Constitution, and to that extent void."

"The obligation of a contract, in the constitutional sense, is the means provided by law by which it can be enforced, by which the parties can be obliged to perform it. Whatever legislation lessens the efficacy of these means impairs the obligation. If it tend to postpone or retard the enforcement of the contract, the obligation of the latter is to that extent weakened." Louisiana v. New Orleans, 102 U. S. 203, 206. And see Seibert v. Lewis, 122 U. S. 284, 294, 295.

Considered in the light of Taylor County's notable and repeated successful efforts to avoid payment of adjudicated indebtedness and also in connection with the present controversy, we think it clear that the right to have any tax levied to discharge respondent's claim collected along with taxes for general county purposes was a substantial and valuable one. The circumstances indicate a deliberate design upon the part of county officials to deprive its creditors of an efficacious remedy provided by law and incorporated into its contracts. To give the amendment the effect claimed would render easier of accomplishment well defined plans obviously designed to defeat proper judicial process and in notorious operation long before its passage. There is here something more than provision for the ordinary and orderly readjustment of administrative matters evidently intended to facilitate public business. Actual conditions cannot be ignored, and

certainly we ought not, through assumptions out of harmony with patent facts and over-nice refinements, to facilitate the practical destruction of admitted legal obligations.

The declarations of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky in Commonwealth &c. v. Wade's Admr. (pp. 801, 802), are illuminating. Referring to the appointment of a separate collector charged with the sole duty of collecting a special tax ostensibly levied to satisfy a judgment against Taylor County, it said:

"There can be little doubt that the fiscal court, by what they did in the matter, were undertaking to nullify the judgment of the circuit court. The appointment of the special collector, Trotter, of whom nothing was ever afterward heard, and who in no way attempted to qualify as collector, or discharge the duties of that office, point to the fact that this was an arrangement by which the fiscal court could seemingly comply with the judgment, but without, in fact, accomplishing anything. This unlawful purpose could only be successful by the failure of the regular collector of the revenue to do his duty in the premises, and to collect the taxes provided for by the special levy. Such juggling with the decrees and judgments of the courts cannot be tolerated. Ours, as has often been said, is a government of laws, and, if the judgments of the courts enforcing the law may be thus nullified or disregarded either by overt act or culpable negligence, government is at an end. The county is as amenable to the law as an individual, and it is the high duty of its officials to enforce the law wherever and whenever they are its ministers. It seems to us high time that it should be taught as a practical lesson, as well as a theory, that there are none so high as to be above the restraints of the law, or so low as to be beneath its protection."

The argument for petitioner, that the Refunding Act

of 1878 provided an exclusive remedy through application to the Circuit Court in case the County Court should fail in its duty, is not well founded. The decisions of the Court of Appeals in Muhlenburg County v. Morehead, 20 Ky. Law Rep. 376, and Pennington v. Woolfolk, 79 Kentucky, 13, make it quite plain that an "attempt to impose on the Circuit Court or judge thereof the duty of levying and collecting taxes is unconstitutional and void" under the jurisprudence of Kentucky.

The judgment of the court below is

Affirmed.

HENDRICKSON, JUDGE OF THE COUNTY COURT OF TAYLOR COUNTY, KENTUCKY, v. CREAGER.

SAME v. GARDNER.

SAME v. HOCKER.

SAME v. STERLING LAND & INVESTMENT COMPANY.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT.

Nos. 428, 429, 430, 431. Argued October 11, 1917.-Decided November 5, 1917.

Decided on the authority of Hendrickson v. Apperson, ante, 105. 238 Fed. Rep. 473, affirmed.

Mr. Helm Bruce, with whom Mr. Abel Harding was on the brief, for petitioner.

Mr. L. A. Faurest, with whom Mr. A. E. Richards was on the brief, for respondents.

MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS announced the decision of the court:

The essential questions involved in these cases are the same as those considered and decided in No. 427, ante, 105. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals in each of them is accordingly

Affirmed.

KELLEY, TRUSTEE OF THE GIBRALTAR INVESTMENT AND HOME BUILDING COMPANY, BANKRUPT, v. GILL.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA.

No. 411. Submitted October 2, 1917.-Decided November 5, 1917.

A court of bankruptcy has no jurisdiction over a suit in equity brought by the trustee of a bankrupt corporation in the State of the corporation's domicile, against a number of its shareholders there residing, for the purpose of collecting from each an ascertained sum of money which by the terms of such shareholder's individual subscription contract had become unconditionally due and payable to the corporation at times specified and without regard to the obligations of other shareholders.

Where the liabilities of the shareholders of a corporation to pay stock subscriptions are several, independent, and unconditional, and no issue with the corporation touching such liabilities is common to the shareholders, the remedy of the corporation, or its trustee in bankruptcy, is by action at law against each shareholder separately; the equitable jurisdiction to avoid multiplicity of actions does not arise merely because the claims are very numerous; and a single

suit by the corporation, or by its trustee in bankruptcy, against many of the shareholders, to collect their subscriptions, cannot be maintained on that ground.

An order of the court of bankruptcy, calling for the payment of shareholders' subscriptions to a bankrupt corporation which, before and independently of the order, were ascertained and payable, adds nothing to the liabilities of the shareholders or to the rights of the trustee in bankruptcy, and cannot justify a single suit by the trustee against many of the shareholders to collect their subscriptions which, in the absence of the order, would not have been cognizable in equity; and neither can an order of the bankruptcy court directing the trustee "to institute a suit in equity" to make such collections confer such equitable jurisdiction.

The amendment to § 47, clause (2) of subdivision a of the Bankruptcy Act, made by the Act of June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. 840, § 8, did not confer new means of collecting ordinary claims due the bankrupt.

Where causes of action and citizenship of parties are such that a bankrupt, before bankruptcy, could have sued only in a state court, the bankruptcy court is without jurisdiction to enforce them at the suit of the trustee, even if as a matter of equity jurisdiction the trustee might join all causes in one bill to prevent a multiplicity of suits, while the bankrupt would have been obliged to sue upon each of them independently at law.

Contested claims of a bankrupt corporation against persons alleged to be shareholders, for moneys alleged to be due and payable on subscriptions to the corporate stock, are not to be regarded as property in the possession of the trustee in bankruptcy for the purpose of determining whether the bankruptcy court has jurisdiction to enforce them; nor does the fact that such alleged debtors are shareholders of the corporation enable the trustee to sue them in that forum to collect their subscriptions.

238 Fed. Rep. 996, affirmed.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Wm. B. Ogden and Mr. Ralph E. Esteb for appellant.

Mr. William Ona Morton, Mr. Porter C. Blackburn and Mr. A. L. Abrahams for appellee.