360
Stevens, J., dissenting
IV
For these reasons, we hold that the District Court lacked jurisdiction over Thomas' subsequent suit. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Justice Stevens, dissenting.
The conflict between the views of the judges on the Court of Appeals and the District Court, on the one hand, and those of my eight colleagues, on the other, demonstrates that this is not an easy case. I believe its outcome should be determined by a proper application of the principle, first announced by Chief Justice Marshall, that a federal court's jurisdiction "is not exhausted by the rendition of its judgment, but continues until that judgment shall be satisfied." Wayman v. Southard, 10 Wheat. 1, 23 (1825). In my opinion that jurisdiction encompasses a claim by a judgment creditor that a party in control of the judgment debtor has fraudulently exercised that control to defeat satisfaction of the judgment.
In substance the Court so held in Riggs v. Johnson County, 6 Wall. 166 (1868), and in Labette County Comm'rs v. United States ex rel. Moulton, 112 U. S. 217 (1884). In each of those cases a judgment against the county was unsatisfied because the county commissioners refused to levy a tax to raise the funds needed to pay the judgment, and in each this Court held that the federal court had jurisdiction to compel the commissioners to take the action necessary to enable the county to satisfy the judgment. It is true, as the Court notes today, that the "order in each case merely required compliance with the existing judgment by the persons with authority to comply." Ante, at 358. But the Court fails to explain why the District Court would not have had jurisdiction to enter a comparable order in this case—one that would have directed petitioner to restore to the judgment
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