Mitchell Engineering & Machinery Co. v. Worthington

140 F. 947, 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 4861
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Montana
DecidedNovember 13, 1905
DocketNo. 286
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 140 F. 947 (Mitchell Engineering & Machinery Co. v. Worthington) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Montana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mitchell Engineering & Machinery Co. v. Worthington, 140 F. 947, 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 4861 (circtdmt 1905).

Opinion

HUNT, District Judge.

Plaintiffs brought this action in the district court of the state of Montana, in and for Silver Bow county, to recover damages against the defendants for the alleged unlawful and malicious taking from plaintiffs’ possession of a quantity of furniture and machinery alleged to belong to it. Defendant corporation has not been [948]*948served. The defendants Lloyd and Sanders were served with summons, and appeared by demurrer and motion to strike out certain portions of plaintiff’s complaint. They also filed a petition for removal of, the cause from the said district court of the state to the Circuit Court of the United States. The petition was accompanied by the usual bond.

The grounds relied upon by petitioners for removal, as disclosed by their petition, were that at the time of the taking of the property petitioner Lloyd was United States marshal for the District of Montana, and that petitioner Sanders was a deputy marshal, and that the alleged unlawful taking was done under and by virtue of a writ of attachment issued out of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Montana, in an action brought by defendant herein, H. R. Worthington, as plaintiff, against Frank S. Mitchell, as sole surviving member of the firm of Mitchell & Turner, defendant, -and that all of the acts of petitioners had in the premises were had and done under and by virtue of the authority of the process issued out of the said United States Circuit Court, wherefore petitioners averred that the case is one arising under the laws of the United States. To the petition are attached copies of the process in attachment, regular in form, issued out of the Circuit Court of the United States. The cause was thereupon ordered removed by the district court of the state to the Circuit Court of the United States.

Plaintiff now moves this court to remand the cause to the district court of the state in and for Silver Bow county, for the reason that it has been improperly removed, the particular grounds being that it does not appear from plaintiff’s complaint that any federal question is involved, or that the case is one arising under a treaty or the laws of the United States, and that it does appear that the state court has jurisdiction. It is necessary, therefore, to decide whether or not it has been made to appear that the suit involves a suit or controversy properly removable. The complaint is the ordinary action for damages for alleged wrongful taking of personal property. It nowhere alleges that the defendants Lloyd and Sanders were officers of the United States, or that they acted in taking the property as such officers, or under color of office in any respect. ,

Defendants rely upon the case of Bock v. Perkins, 139 U. S. 630, 11 Sup. Ct. 677, 35 L. Ed. 314. It was there held that under the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. 470, c. 137 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 509]), if a defendant, who was sued in a state court, showed, in his petition to such court praying for removal, that the suit involved a federal question, the case could be removed, notwithstanding the fact that such disclosure was first made in the petition, although it was ignored in the complaint. But the revised act of August 13, 1888 (25 Stat. 433, c. 866 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 508]), made a significant change in the matter of the removal of causes from state to federal courts, by providing that no case can be removed from a "state court into a Circuit Court of the United States, unless a federal question is apparent in plaintiff’s complaint or bill. The omissions of the pleading cannot be supplied by the allegations of a petition for removal. I so understand the reasoning of the court in Tennessee v. Union & Planters’ Bank, 152 U. [949]*949S. 454, 14 Sup. Ct. 654, 38 L. Ed. 511, where Justice Gray, discussing the effect of the acts of 1887 and 1888, expressly stated that no statement in the petition for removal, or in the demurrer, could supply the want of mention in the complainant’s bill of the Constitution or laws of the United States. Justices Harlan and Field dissented, being of the opinion that under the judiciary acts of 1875 and 1887 it was not intended by Congress to deny to a defendant the right of removal where the suit, by reason of the nature of the defense, was one arising under the laws of the United States, while allowing the plaintiff, whose complaint made a suit of that kind, to invoke the original jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. As peculiarly pertinent to the case now under consideration; Justice Harlan, commenting upon the opinion and decision of the majority, said:

“One effect of tlie present decision is, except in the eases mentioned in the sections of the Revised Statutes and in the acts of Congress referred to in the fifth section of the act of 1887, to prevent an officer of the United States, when sued in a state court, on account of some act done by him, from removing the suit into the federal court, although what he did is alleged to have been done in execution of some act of Congress, or pursuant to an order of a court of the United States.”

Shortly after the decision in Tennessee v. Union & Planters’ Bank, supra, the Supreme Court again considered the question in Chappell v. Waterworth, 155 U. S. 102, 15 Sup. Ct. 34, 39 L. Ed. 85. Justice Gray once more spoke for the court. The action there was in ejectment, brought in a state court in Maryland. Plaintiff and defendant were citizens of Maryland. Defendant petitioned for removal upon the ground, in effect, that the land described in the complaint was the property of the United States, and in its possession and use as a lighthouse, of which defendant was keeper under appointment and authority of the United States. The cause was removed to the Circuit Court of the United States, where plaintiff moved to remand to the state court, but the motion was denied. The Supreme Court held that the case was removed to the federal court without authority of law, citing Tennessee v. Bank, supra, as deciding "that under the acts of March 3, 1887, and August 13, 1888, a case not depending upon the citizenship of the parties, nor otherwise specially provided for, cannot be removed from a state court into the Circuit Court of the United States, as one arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, unless that appears by the plaintiff’s statement of his own claim, and that if it does not so appear the want cannot be supplied by any statement in the petition for removal or in the subsequent pleadings. The case was accordingly remanded to the state court.

Three years thereafter, in 1897, the court, in Walker v. Collins, 167 U. S. 57, 17 Sup. Ct. 738, 42 L. Ed. 76, affirmed the rule announced in the cases last cited. Walker v. Collins is very close to the case at bar. Collins sued in the state courts of Kansas to recover damages from Walker and others, for the alleged unlawful seizure of goods, the property of plaintiff. Defendants, by answer, averred that during the times mentioned in the complaint defendant Walker was United States marshal for the District of Kansas, and the other defendants were his deputies, and that the seizure was made under the authority of an order of [950]*950attachment issued out of the United States Circuit Court for the District of Kansas, in an action therein pending.

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Bluebook (online)
140 F. 947, 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 4861, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mitchell-engineering-machinery-co-v-worthington-circtdmt-1905.