This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

On October 9, 1925, the three acting trustees filed an account in the Common Pleas Court, which, in the absence of exceptions, was confirmed. July 7, 1930, a second and partial account was filed in the same court by two surviving trustees on behalf of themselves and a deceased trustee. On the next day, Lida and her son John brought suit in equity in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania against the two trustees and the administrators of the deceased trustee, alleging mismanagement of the trust funds and praying that the trustees be removed and all the defendants be made to account and repay the losses of the estate. The trustees moved to dismiss the bill in the federal court for lack of indispensable parties and because the state court had exclusive jurisdiction of the controversy. On May 12, 1931, the federal court refused the motion to dismiss and required the defendants to answer, declaring that it would not decide the question of jurisdiction until after answers had been filed. May 18, 1931, the defendants answered setting up that the controversy was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the state court. Nothing further was done in the federal suit until April 17, 1937, when the plaintiffs amended their bill. On May 5, 1937, the trustees answered the amendment. On May 1, 1937, the trustees had presented a petition in the state court for a rule upon the plaintiffs in the District Court, the petitioners herein, to show cause why they should not be restrained from prosecuting their suit in the federal court. After an answer by Lida denying that the Common Pleas Court had control or possession of the trust funds or that any controversy was therein pending when the suit was instituted in the federal court, the rule was made absolute on June 17, 1937. July 6, 1937, John Fitzgerald, one of the petitioners, applied to the federal court for an injunction to restrain the defendants in the case there pending, the respondents herein, from further prosecution of the proceedings in the state court. On the same day, the petitioners took an appeal from the order of the Common Pleas Court to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. July 19, 1937, the trustees filed in the Common Pleas Court a third and partial account of the trust to which exceptions were filed. Testimony was thereafter taken on the exceptions to the second account. September 18, 1937, the federal court temporarily enjoined the defendants in that court, the respondents herein, from further prosecution of the proceedings in the state court to enjoin the plaintiffs, the petitioners herein, from having the jurisdictional issue tried in the District Court, and set November 8, 1937, for a trial of that issue. The trial was accordingly had. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the order of the Common Pleas Court enjoining the petitioners from prosecuting their suit in the District Court, and, on the same day, the District Court rendered an opinion holding it had jurisdiction notwithstanding the proceedings in the Common Pleas Court. The District Judge entered no decree but stated that requests for findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a form of decree, might be submitted and that he would proceed thereafter to try the merits of the cause. Each of the courts claims jurisdiction and each has restrained the parties before it from proceeding in the other. The Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari.

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