BRSTEIN V. BOTHSClJILD.
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affidavit in garnishment or attachmen·t proceedings." This, however, was not always the law in Michigan.. A statute passed in 1889, supplementary to the attachment law then in force, provided as follows: "But nQ .writ of attachment shall be quashed on account of any defect in the affidavit on which the same issued, provided that the plaintiff, his agent or attorney, shall, whenever objection may be made, file such affidavit as is required by law." When the Revised Statutes of 1846 were adopted, and which are readopted in the subsequent compilations and are now in force, this provision of the act of 1839, it appears, was dropped, and the general provision authorizing amendments was never applied. It necessarily follows, however, that while the act of 1839 was in force it could not. have been thought that the affidavit was jurisdictional in the sense now held, that any substantial defect in it made it void, for otherwise it would not have been made capable of amendment. So that the effect adjudged to result from omitting the act of 1839 from subsequent revieions of the attachment law seems to have been a complete change in the character of that proceeding under it. It is, then, the doctrine enforced by the courts of Michigan that a writ of attachment is void unless supported by an affidavit conforming in all material respects to the stdct requirements of the statute, from which the conclusion is deduced that the affidavit itself, being the foundation of jurisdiction, cannot be the subject of amendment. But this is not the doctrine of the courts of the United States in the case of Matthews v. Densmore, 109 U. S. 216, S. C. 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 126. The supreme court of the United States reversed the supreme court of Michigan on this very point, and held that the jurisdiction of the court over the property taken by virtue of the writ of attachment did not at all depend upon the regularity or sufficiency of the affidavit; all questions of that character being questions merely of error in procedure. And the principle was then considered to have been fully established in Oooper v. Reynolds, 10 Wall. 308; and that sueh is the general rule, embracing the power of amendment, appears also from Tilton v. Cofield, 93 U. S. 163. In that case a statute of the territory of Colorado permitted amendments in attachment proceedings as was formerly done in Michigan. In addition, the court said: "Allowing amendments is incidental to the exercise of all judIcIal power, and is indispensable to the ends of jus.Uce. Usually, to permit or refuse rests in the discretion of the court, and the result in either case is not assignable for error. ... ... ... Where no local statute or rule of local law is involved, the power to amend is the same in attachment suits as in others. Cases of this kind, too numerous to be cited, may be found, in which amendments in the most important partiCUlars were permitted to be made."
But it is argued there is a rule of local law administered by the courts of Michigan which, by adoption by the Statutes of the United States, becomes also the law of this court. Section 914, Rev. St., is as follows:
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other than equity and admiralty causes in the circuit and district courts, shall conform as near as may be to the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding existing at the time in like causes in the courts of record of the state within which sucb circuit or district courts are held, any rule of court to the contrary notwithstanding." The purpose of this provision, as was said in Nudd v. Burrows, 91 U. S. 426, 441, was to bring about uniformity in the law of procedure in the federal and state courts of the same locality, having reference to the Code enactments of many of the states; yet, as was said in IndianrJ,polis If St. L. B. Co. v. Horst, 93 U. S. 291, 300, .. the conformity is required to be" as near as may be, .. not as near as may be possible, or as near as may be practicable. This indefiniteness may have been suggested by a purpose; it devolved upon the judges to be affected the duty of construing and deciding, and gave them the power to reject, as congress doubtless expected they would do, any subordinate provisions in such state statutes which, in their judgment, would unwisely incumber the administration of the law, or tend to defeat the ends of justice, in their tribunals. While the act of congress is to a large extent mandatory, it is also to some extent only directory and advisory." The act of congress, at any rate, does not require the adoption, with the local statutes, of the local interpretation which may have been put upon them, or which may from time to time be enforced. It must be held that the body of the local law thus adopted in the general must be construed in the courts of the United States in the light of their own system of jurisprudence, as defined by their own constitution as tribunals, and of other acts of congress on the same subject. It can hardly be supposed that it was the intent of this legislation to place the courts of the United States in each state, in reference to their own practice and procedure, upon the footing merely of subordinate state courts, required to look from time to time to the supreme court of the state for authoritative rules for their guidance in those details. To do so would be, in many cases, to trench in important particulars, not easy to foresee, upon substantial rights, protected by the peculiar constitution of the federal judiciary, and which might seriously affect, in cases easily supposed, the proper correlation and independence of the two systems of federal and state judicial tribunals. This is illustrated in the very case now under consideration, and in reference to attachments in general, as to which section 915, Rev. St.; makes special provision. It enacts as follows: "In common-law causes in the circnit and district courts the plaintiff shall be entitled to similar remedies, by attachment or othE:'r process, against the property of the defendant. which are now prOVided by the laws of the state in which such court is held for the courts thereof; and such circuit or district courts may from time to time, by general rules, adopt such state laws as may be in force in the states where they are held, in relation to attachment and other process; provided, that similar prE:'liminary affidavits or proofs, and sim-
... The practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding In etvil
FEDERAL REPORTER·
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