Opinion of the Court. laches and estoppel. As the controversy involved the question on what basis dividends should have been declared, and therein the enforcement of the administration of the trust in accordance with law, we have no doubt of the jurisdiction in equity. Nor was the lapse of time such as to raise any presumption of laches, nor could an estoppel properly be held to have arisen. Less than two years had elapsed from the payment of the first dividend to the filing of the bill, and the other creditors of the insolvent bank had not been harmed by the temporary submission of complainant to the ruling of the Comptroller. The decree affected only assets on hand or such as might be subsequently discovered; and if the other creditors had no rights superior to that of complainant, they lost nothing by the reduction of their dividends, if any, afterwards declared to be paid out of such assets. The inquiry on the merits is, generally speaking, whether a secured creditor of an insolvent national bank may prove and receive dividends 'upon the face of his claim as it stood at the time of the declaration of insolvency, without crediting either his collaterals, or collections made therefrom after such declaration, subject always to the proviso that dividends must cease when from them and from collaterals realized, the claim has been paid in full. Counsel agree that four different rules have been applied in the distribution of insolvent estates, and state them as follows: "Rule 1. The creditor desiring to participate in the fund is required first to exhaust his security and credit the proceeds on his claim, or to credit its value upon his claim and prove for the balance, it being optional with him to surrender his security and prove for his full claim. "Rule 2. The creditor can prove for the full amount, but shall receive dividends only on the amount due him at the time of distribution of the fund; that is, he is required to credit on his claim, as proved, all sums received from his security, and may receive dividends only on the balance due him. Opinion of the Court. "Rule 3. The creditor shall be allowed to prove for, and receive dividends upon, the amount due him at the time of proving or sending in his claim to the official liquidator, being required to credit as payments all the sums received from his security prior thereto. "Rule 4. The creditor can prove for, and receive dividends upon, the full amount of his claim, regardless of any sums received from his collateral after the transfer of the assets from the debtor in insolvency, provided that he shall not receive more than the full amount due him." The Circuit Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals held the fourth rule applicable, and decreed accordingly. This was in accordance with the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Chemical National Bank v. Armstrong, 16 U. S. App. 465, Mr. Justice Brown, Circuit Judges Taft and Lurton, composing the court. The opinion was delivered by Judge Taft, and discusses the question on principle with a full citation of the authorities. We concur with that court in the proposition that assets of an insolvent debtor are held under insolvency proceedings in trust for the benefit of all his creditors, and that a creditor, on proof of his claim, acquires a vested interest in the trust fund; and, this being so, that the second rule before mentioned must be rejected, as it is based on the denial, in effect, of a vested interest in the trust fund, and concedes to the creditor simply a right to share in the distributions made from that fund according to the amount which may then be due him, requiring a readjustment of the basis of distribution at the time of declaring every dividend, and treating, erroneously as we think, the claim of the creditor to share in the assets of the debtor, and his debt against the debtor, as if they were one and the same thing. The third and fourth rules concur in holding that the creditor's right to dividends is to be determined by the amount due him at the time his interest in the assets becomes vested, and is not subject to subsequent change, but they differ as to the point of time when this occurs. In Kellock's case, L. R. 3 Ch. App. 769, it was held that Opinion of the Court. the creditor's interest in the general fund to be distributed vested at the date of 'presenting or proving his claim; and this rule has been followed in many jurisdictions where statutory provisions have been construed to require an affirmative election to become a beneficiary thereunder. For instance, the cases in Illinois construing the assignment act of that State, which are well considered and full to the point, hold that the interest of each creditor in the assigned estate "only vests in him when he signifies his assent to the assignment by filing his claim with the assignee." Levy v. Chicago National Bank, 158 Illinois, 88; Furness v. Union National Bank, 147 Illinois, 570. 66 On the other hand, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Miller's Appeal, 35 Penn. St. 481, and many subsequent cases, has held, necessarily in view of the statutes of Pennsyl vania regulating the matter, that the interest vests at the time of the transfer of the assets in trust. In that case the debtor executed a general assignment for the benefit of creditors. Subsequently the assignor became entitled to a legacy which was attached by a creditor, who realized therefrom $2402.87. It was held that such creditor was notwithstanding entitled to a dividend out of the assigned estate on the full amount of his claim at the time of the execution of the assignment. Mr. Justice Strong, then a member of the state tribunal, said: By the deed of assignment, the equitable ownership of all the assigned property passed to the creditors. They became joint proprietors, and each creditor owned such a proportional part of the whole as the debt due to him was of the aggregate of the debts. The extent of his interest was fixed by the deed of trust. It was, indeed, only equitable; but whatever it was, he took it under the deed, and it was only as a part owner that he had any standing in court when the distribution came to be made. It amounts to very little to argue that Miller's recovery of the $2402.87 operated with precisely the same effect as if a voluntary payment had been made by the assignor after his assignment; that is, that it extinguished the debt to the amount recovered. No doubt it did, but it is not as a creditor that he is entitled to a distributive share of Opinion of the Court. the trust fund. His rights are those of an owner by virtue of the deed of assignment. The amount of the debt due to him is important only so far as it determines the extent of his ownership. The reduction of that debt, therefore, after the creation of the trust, and after his ownership had become vested, it would seem, must be immaterial." Differences in the language of voluntary assignments and of statutory provisions naturally lead to particular differences in decision, but the principle on which the third and fourth rules rest is the same. In other words, those rules hold, together with the first rule, that the creditor's right to dividends is based on the amount of his claims at the time his interest in the assets vests by the statute, or deed of trust, or rule of law, under which they are to be administered. The first rule is commonly known as the bankruptcy rule, because enforced by the bankruptcy courts in the exercise of their peculiar jurisdiction, under the bankruptcy acts, over the property of the bankrupt, in virtue of which creditors holding mortgages or liens thereon might be required to realize on their securities, to permit them to be sold, to take them on valuation, or to surrender them altogether, as a condition of proving against the general assets. The fourth rule is that ordinarily laid down by the chancery courts, to the effect that, as the trust created by the transfer of the assets by operation of law or otherwise, is a trust for all creditors, no creditor can equitably be compelled to surrender any other vested right he has in the assets of his debtor in order to obtain his vested right under the trust. It is true that, in equity, a creditor having a lien upon two funds may be required to exhaust one of them in aid of creditors who can only resort to the other, but this will not be done when it trenches on the rights or operates to the prejudice of the party entitled to the double fund. Story Eq. Jur. (13th ed.) § 633; In re Bates, 118 Illinois, 524. And it is well established that in marshalling assets, as respects creditors, no part of his security can be taken from a secured creditor until he is completely satisfied. Leading Cases in Equity, White & Tudor, Vol. II, Part 1, 4th Amer. ed., pp. 258, 322. Opinion of the Court. In Greenwood v. Taylor, 1 Russ. & Myl. 185, Sir John Leach applied the bankruptcy rule in the administration of a decedent's estate, and remarked that the rule was "not founded, as has been argued, upon the peculiar jurisdiction in bankruptcy, but rests upon the general principles of a court of equity in the administration of assets;" and referred to the doctrine requiring a creditor having two funds as security, one of which he shares with others, to resort to his sole security first. But Greenwood v. Taylor was in effect overruled by Lord Cottenham in Mason v. Bogg, 2 Myl. & Cr. 443, 488, and expressly so by the Court of Appeal in Chancery in Kellock's case; and the application of the bankruptcy rule rejected. In Kellock's case, Lord Justice W. Page Wood, soon afterwards Lord Chancellor Hatherly, said: "Now in the case of proceedings with reference to the administration of the estates of deceased persons, Lord Cottenham put the point very clearly, and said: 'A mortgagee. has a double security. He has a right to proceed against both, and to make the best he can of both. Why he should be deprived of this right because the debtor dies, and dies insolvent, it is not very easy to see.' "Mr. De Gex, who argued this case very ably, says that the whole case is altered by the insolvency. But where do we find such a rule established, and on what principle can such a rule be founded, as that where a mortgagor is insolvent the contract between him and his mortgagee is to be treated as altered in a way prejudicial to the mortgagee, and that the mortgagee is bound to realize his security before proceeding with his personal demand. "It was strongly pressed upon us, and the argument succeeded before Sir J. Leach in Greenwood v. Taylor, that the practice in bankruptcy furnishes a precedent which ought to be followed. But the answer to that is, that this court is not to depart from its own established practice, and vary the nature of the contract between mortgagor and mortgagee by analogy to a rule which has been adopted by a court having a peculiar jurisdiction, established for administering the property |