Fairview Fluorspar & Lead Co. v. Bethlehem Steel Co.

258 F. 681, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1178
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJune 16, 1919
DocketNo. 6048
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 258 F. 681 (Fairview Fluorspar & Lead Co. v. Bethlehem Steel Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fairview Fluorspar & Lead Co. v. Bethlehem Steel Co., 258 F. 681, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1178 (E.D. Pa. 1919).

Opinion

DICKINSON, District Judge.

The very point in controversy in this case has been ruled in adjudged cases, the number of which is so large as to forbid even citation. We are unable, however, to follow these rulings as our guide, inasmuch as they lead, some of them in one direction, and others in the opposite’. The larger number support the contention of the plaintiff, but the number which support the defendant is so respectable that the majority cannot be found to have the weight of authority. We must in consequence perforce align ourselves with those with whose views we find ourselves in accord. Osstrom v. Edison (D. C.) 244 Fed. 228 (Judge Rellstab), and Park Square v. American (D. C.) 222 Fed. 979 (Judge Ray), may be cited as representative of these opposing views. All the practical' purposes of a ruling might be met by the simple announcement of our adherence to the one line of cases or the other.

It is, however, the due of the very capable counsel, who have argued the question with helpful thoroughness and fullness, that the reasons [682]*682should be stated which lead to the conclusion reached, and the discussion may, in some degree, lighten the labors of the court which alone can pronounce judgment with an authoritative voice. The whole field of discussion has been so fully covered by the opinions already rendered, and all phases of the question presented so fully considered, that we enter upon the field with no hope of adding anything of value to the discussion.

The plaintiff is a resident of Illinois, and the defendant of Pennsylvania, but the suit was brought in the circuit court of St. Louis, a state court of Missouri. The process was by writ of foreign attachment, served upon residents of the latter state, who were summoned as garnishees. The defendant applied for a removal to this court, in which the state 'court acquiesced by transmitting a copy of the record. The plaintiff then moved to remand. This is based upon the proposition that this court is without authority or jurisdiction to adjudge the case, because the cause was not removable to this court, and incidentally is or may not be removable at all.

This statement presents the question for decision. We have confined it to the sole question of jurisdiction or removability, for the reason that sometimes there is a difference in the attitude of the federal courts, born of the fact of whether the state court retains or relinquishes jurisdiction. The state court here is not asserting jurisdiction, but the distinction is of no importance.

[1] In order to have a beginning, we start with the proposition that the plaintiff, having a cause of action, had the .right to bring the suit in any state court which had jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the parties. The Missouri court has such jurisdiction, and no question is raised but that the action was there properly brought. The defendant, however, has no right to have the cause removed unless the right is given it by some act of Congress, and no. right to have the cause removed to this court unless it is a court designated by the act of Congress for this purpose. If the plaintiff, instead of choosing to bring its action in the Missouri court,, wished to bring it in a court of the United States, it could not do so unless it was'given this right by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and the suit, if brought, must be brought in that court which was designated by some act of Congress as a court in which the action might be brought.

The question of £he court in which such an action was required to be brought is of importance, as will hereafter appear, in the present inquiry, and might as well be faced now. The judicial power is vested by the Constitution in the Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as Congress may ordain and establish. Congress has established the present system of District Courts, and has defined them powers and jurisdiction. They have such powers as are thus conferred upon them and no more. The Judicial Code (Act March 3, 1911, c. 231, 36 Stat. 1087), following the provisions of the Constitution, gives to the District Courts jurisdiction in cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, etc., and, along with other controversies, some of those between citizens of different states. [683]*683It is admitted that the instant case was one within the grant of this general jurisdiction, .but on the sole ground of diversity of citizenship.

[2] This brings us to the question of by what court this jurisdiction could be asserted. One provision of the Code makes the defendant in an action in a District Court suable only in the territorial jurisdiction of which he was a resident. Another section, however, makes him suable in the home jurisdiction of either the plaintiff or defendant. The present case might, under this section (as is conceded), have been brought in the Eastern district of Illinois or the like district of Pennsylvania. We think it further follows (although this is not admitted) that, unless the defendant waived its privilege, the suit could have been brought in no other district. At all events, we have so concluded, for the reasons later stated. The conclusion reached is now stated by way of anticipation.

[3] Resuming the following of the line of thought which we interrupted in order to find in what court the action might have been brought, if it had been originally begun in a court of the United States, we come next to the question of the removal of actions begun in the state courts. We have the principle, before stated, that there is no right of removal except as conferred by some act of Congress, and that the right, if granted, must be asserted and exercised in the mode and manner indicated by Congress. It is also clear that there is neither a logical nor any practical necessity to permit a cause to be removed to a court of the United States merely because it might have been brought there in the first instance. Of course, it is true that, in order to remove a cause to a court, that court must be given jurisdiction to try it, and because of the conformity and other like statutes, later referred to, there is a very great practical convenience in having the United States court, to which a cause is removed, be a court sitting in the same state as that of the state court in which the action was first brought.

We may here again pause to refer to these statutes, as they have some bearing upon the question before us. In giving to the District Courts jurisdiction to try certain cases (for instance, those between private parties who were citizens of different states), Congress had in mind that the state courts would, at the same time, be trying other like cases, and it was, of course, of practical importance that the same law be administered, and that so far as practicable the cases be tried in the same general way. Out of this consideration grew the conformity statutes, and the power given the United States courts to assimilate execution and other like process to that of the state courts. Aside from considerations of the kind referred to, there need be no relation between the right to sue in and the right to remove a suit to a court of the United States.

Congress, by the twenty-eighth section of the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1010), granted the right to remove actions from the state courts, limiting the right, however, to nonresident defendants, and requiring that the court to which the action was removed should be a court in which it might originally have been brought.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Doherty v. McDowell
115 A. 92 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 1921)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
258 F. 681, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1178, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fairview-fluorspar-lead-co-v-bethlehem-steel-co-paed-1919.