Opinion of the Court. We respectfully submit that it would be the height of bad faith now to allow the Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad Company the prayer of McGourkey's petition having been granted, the equipment having been placed in his possession for sale, in accordance with the terms of his lease, no appeal having been taken from the decree, part of the equipment having been leased to it, and the whole sold at auction in December, 1885, and dispersed, -to claim that all the while, and notwithstanding the decree, the equipment remained the property of the Ohio Central Railroad Company, or subject to the prior lien of the Central Trust Company, whose counsel were heard in opposition to the decree, and passed to the Toledo & Ohio Central Company, by a sale confirmed, and in pursuance of a deed executed after the date of this decree, and while McGourkey was in possession of the engines and cars and engaged in the execution of the decree. Mr. Stevenson Burke, for appellees. MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court. The controversy in this case turns principally upon the title of the petitioner McGourkey to the rolling stock in question, and upon the relative priorities of the holders of the cartrust certificates, whom he represents, and the purchasers of the railway, who succeeded to the rights of the first mortgagees under the after-acquired property clause of the mortgage. (1) We are confronted upon the threshold of the case with the proposition that the decree of June 9, 1885, ordering this property to be turned over by the receiver to the petitioner, was a final decree, which it was not in the power of the court at a subsequent term to disturb, and hence that the court was estopped to render the decree of February 4, 1889, from which this appeal was taken, at least in so far as it assumed to upset the title of McGourkey. Probably no question of equity practice has been the sub Opinion of the Court. ject of more frequent discussion in this court than the finality of decrees. It has usually arisen upon appeals taken from decrees claimed to be interlocutory, but it has occasionally happened that the power of the court to set aside such a decree at a subsequent term has been the subject of dispute. The cases, it must be conceded, are not altogether harmonious. Upon the one hand it is clear that a decree is final, though the case be referred to a master to execute the decree by a sale of property or otherwise, as in the case of the foreclosure of a mortgage. Ray v. Law, 3 Cranch, 179; Whiting v. Bank of the United States, 13 Pet. 6; Bronson v. Railroad Co., 2 Black, 524. If, however, the decree of foreclosure and sale leaves the amount due upon the debt to be determined, and the property to be sold ascertained and defined, it is not final. Railroad Co. v. Swasey, 23 Wall. 405; Grant v. Phonix Insurance Co., 106 U. S. 429. A like result follows if it merely determines the validity of the mortgage, and, without ordering a sale, directs the case to stand continued for further decree upon the coming in of the master's report. Burlington, Cedar Rapids &c. Railway v. Simmons, 123 U. S. 52; Parsons v. Robinson, 122 U. S. 112. It is equally well settled that a decree in admiralty determining the question of liability for a collision or other tort, (The Palmyra, 10 Wheat. 502; Chace v. Vasquez, 11 Wheat. 429; Mordecai v. Lindsey, [The Mary Eddy,] 19 How. 199,) or in equity establishing the validity of a patent and referring the case to a master to compute and report the damages, is interlocutory merely. Barnard v. Gibson, 7 How. 650; Humiston v. Stainthorp, 2 Wall. 106. It may be said in general that if the court make a decree fixing the rights and liabilities of the parties, and thereupon refer the case to a master for a ministerial purpose only, and no further proceedings in court are contemplated, the decree is final; but if it refer the case to him as a subordinate court and for a judicial purpose, as to state an account between the parties, upon which a further decree is to be entered, the decree is not final. Craighead v. Wilson, 18 How. 199; Beebe v. Russell, 19 How. 283. VOL. CXLVI-35 Opinion of the Court. But even if an account be ordered taken, if such accounting be not asked for in the bill, and be ordered simply in execution of the decree, and such decree be final as to all matters within the pleadings, it will still be regarded as final. Craighead v. Wilson, 18 How. 199; Winthrop Iron Co. v. Meeker, 109 U. S. 180. In the case under consideration the petitioner prayed for four distinct reliefs: 1. That the receiver perform all the covenants of the lease, and pay all sums due, etc.; 2. Or that he be directed to deliver to petitioner the rolling stock in order that the same might be sold; 3. That he be directed to file statement of the number of miles run, and of the sums received for the use of such rolling stock; 4. That it be referred to an examiner to take testimony and report the value of the use of such rolling stock while in custody of the receiver, and that the receiver be directed to pay the amount justly due, etc. The decree followed the general terms of the petition by ordering the rolling stock claimed to be delivered to McGourkey, and referring the case to a special master to determine the rental of the same while used by the receiver; the value of the rolling stock over and above the sums paid by the receiver to the petitioner while the same was in the custody of the receiver; the number of miles run by the receiver; the money received for the use of the same by other roads; the loss, damage, and destruction to the same while in the custody of the receiver; and also to "determine and report upon all questions and matters of difference between said receiver and said McGourkey, growing out of the use and restoration of said cars and locomotives." It is claimed that inasmuch as the court granted the prayer of the petitioner, and turned the property over to him, it was a final adjudication of his right to the same, notwithstanding the reference to a master for an accounting; and we are referred to certain cases in this court as sustaining this contention. In Forgay v. Conrad, 6 How. 201, the object of the bill was Opinion of the Court. to set aside sundry deeds for lands and slaves, and for an account of the rents and profits of the property so conveyed. The court entered a decree declaring the deeds fraudulent and void, directing the property to be delivered up to the complainant, directing one of the defendants to pay him $11,000, and "that the complainant do have execution for the several matters aforesaid." The decree then directed that the master take an account of the profits. Under the peculiar circumstances of the case the decree was held to be appealable, although, said Chief Justice Taney, "Undoubtedly it is not final in the strict technical sense of that term." The opinion was placed largely upon the ground that the decree not only decided the title to the property in dispute, but awarded execution. In the very next case, Perkins v. Fourniquet, 6 How. 206, where the Circuit Court decreed that complainants were entitled to two-sevenths of certain property, and referred the matter to a master to take an account of it, the decree was held not to be final. And again in the next case, Pulliam v. Christian, 6 How. 209, a decree setting aside a deed by a bankrupt, directing the trustees under the deed to deliver up to the assignee all the property in their hands, and directing an account to be taken of the proceeds of sales previously made, was also held not to be a final decree. Indeed, the case of Forgay v. Conrad has been generally treated as an exceptional one, and, as was said in Craighead v. Wilson, 18 How. 199, 202, as made under the peculiar circumstances of that case, and to prevent a loss of the property, which would have been disposed of beyond the reach of an appellate court before a final decree adjusting the accounts could be entered. A somewhat similar criticism was made of this case in Beebe v. Russell, 19 How. 283, 287, wherein it was intimated that the fact that execution had been awarded was the only ground upon which the finality of the decree could be supported. In Thomson v. Dean, 7 Wall. 342, the decree directed the defendant to transfer to the plaintiff certain shares of stock, and that an account be taken as to the amount paid and to be Opinion of the Court. paid for the same, and as to dividends accrued. But this was held to be a final decree upon the ground that it changed the property in the stock as absolutely and as completely as could be done by execution on a decree for sale. In this case the court did distinctly approve of Forgay v. Conrad, although the decree was put upon the ground that it decided finally the right to the property in contest. In Winthrop Iron Company v. Meeker, 109 U. S. 180, a bill was filed to set aside as fraudulent the proceedings of a stockholders' meeting, and to have a receiver appointed. The decree adjudged that the proceedings of the meeting were fraudulent; that a certain lease executed in accordance with the authority then given was void; that a receiver should be appointed with power to continue the business; and that an account be taken of profits realized from the use of the leased property, and also of royalties upon certain ores mined by the defendants. The court held the decree to be final, because the whole purpose of the suit had been accomplished, and the accounting ordered was only in aid of the execution of the decree, and was not a part of the relief prayed for in the bill, which contemplated nothing more than a rescission of the authority to execute the lease, and a transfer of the management of the company to a receiver. The language of Mr. Justice McLean in Craighead v. Wilson, 18 How. 201, was quoted to the effect that the decree was final on "all matters within the pleadings," and nothing remained to be done but to adjust accounts between the parties growing out of the operations of the defendants during the pendency of the suit. The case was distinguished from suits by patentees in the fact that, in such suits, the money recovery is part of the subject-matter of the suit. In this particular, too, the case is clearly distinguishable from the one now under consideration, inasmuch as here the account which the special master was directed to take was within the issue made by the pleadings and a part of the relief prayed for in the petition, the absence of which was held by the court in the Winthrop Iron Case to establish the finality of the decree. In Central Trust Company v. Grant Locomotive Works, 135 |