Wabash Western Ry. v. Brow

65 F. 941, 13 C.C.A. 222, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 2276
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 5, 1895
DocketNo. 199
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 65 F. 941 (Wabash Western Ry. v. Brow) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wabash Western Ry. v. Brow, 65 F. 941, 13 C.C.A. 222, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 2276 (6th Cir. 1895).

Opinion

TAFT, Circuit Judge,

after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

Can a defendant, who makes no objection to the jurisdiction of the state court over his person, and who files a petition for removal to the federal court, be heard to urge in the latter court that the state court acquired no jurisdiction over him because of defective sendee? The twelfth section of the judiciary act of 1789, giving the right of removal, was worded as follows:

“That if a suit be commenced in any state court against an alien or by a citizen of the state in which the suit is brought against a citizen of another state and the matter in dispute exceeds the aforesaid sum or value of $500.00 exclusive of costs to be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court; and the defendant shall, at the time of entering his appearance in such state court, file a.petition for the removal of the cause for trial into the next circuit court, to be held in the district! where the suit is pending, * * * and offer good and sufficient surety for his entering in such court, on the first day of its session, copies of said process against him, and also for his there appearing and entering special bail in tbe cause, if special bail was originally requisite therein, it shall then be. the duty of the state court to accept the surety, and proceed no further in the cause, and any bail that may have been originally taken shall he discharged, and the said copies being entered as aforesaid, in such court' of the United States, the cause shall there proceed in the same manner as if.it had been brought there by .original process.”

[945]*945Under this section it was held by the supreme court of the United States, by Mr. Justice Curtis and by Judges Krekel and Treat of Missouri, that the filing of a petition for removal, and the removal of the cause from the state court to the federal court, constituted a waiver of all objections to jurisdiction over the person. In the case of Pollard v. Dwight, 4 Cranch, 421, Dwight brought a foreign attachment against Pollard & Pickett in a state court of Connecticut. The defendants appeared, and removed the cause to the circuit court of the United States for the district of Connecticut, and there pleaded to the jurisdiction of the court on the ground that there was no personal service on them. This plea was held bad, and the ruling was sustained in the supreme court, where Chief Justice Marshall said:

“The point of jurisdiction made hy the paintiffs in error is considered as free from all doubt. By appearing to the action, the defendants in the court below placed themselves precisely in the situation in which they would have stood had process been served upon them, and consequently waived all objections to the noiiservice of process. Were it otherwise, the duty of the circuit court would have been to remand ihe cause to the state court in which it was instituted, and this court would be bound now to direct that proceeding.”

The necessary implication of this language is that no petition for removal was valid in a state court without such an appearance there as to waive all objection to the court’s jurisdiction over the person, that a petition for removal without appearance required a remanding of the case.

In Sayles v. Insurance Co., 2 Curt. 212, Fed. Cas. No. 12,421, a foreign corporation sued in a state court of Rhode Island filed a petition in that court to remove the suit to the circuit court of the United States for that district. The defendant then moved to dismiss the action for want of jurisdiction, on the ground that the only service made in the state court had been an attachment of the goods and effects of the defendant, and that the court had no jurisdiction to try a, case against the defendant, because it was neither a,n inhabitant of the district where the suit was brought, nor was it found therein; hut Mr. Justice Curtis hold that under the twelfth section of the judiciary act it was not necessary that the defendant should be an inhabitant of the district, or should he personally found therein; that under that act any process in accordance with the laws of the state by which the defendant was made a party was sufficient to constitute it a pending sidt for removal within the jurisdiction of the federal court. As a second ground, however, for his conclusion he said:

“Besides, it has been held in Toland v. Sprague, 12 Pet. 300, that the locality of the action within the district where the defendant is an inhábil ant or is found is a personal privilege of the defendant, which he may waive by appearing and pleading to the action. And I am of opinion that when ho appears in the state court, flies a petition for leave to remove the action, gives a bond to enter it in the circuit court, and actually enters it there, he has thereby waived any personal privilege he might have had to bo sued in another district. If pleading to the action amounts to a waiver of sncii a privilege, upon the ground that he ought not afterwards to be heard to object to the means by which he was brought into court, I do not perceive why these [946]*946proceedings should not hare the same effect. The defendant .comes in, becomes the actor treats the suit as one properly instituted, removes it to another court, and enters it there, and then says he was not obliged to ai>pear at all, and the state court in effect had no suit before it. This, I am of opinion, he cannot do. I consider that this court will not look back to inquire into or try the question whether the state court liad jurisdiction. The act of congress allows defendants to remove actual and legally pending suits from the state courts. If this were not such a suit, the defendant should not have brought it here. By bringing it here, he voluntarily treats it as property commenced, and actually pending in the state court; and he cannot, after it has been entered here, treat it otherwise. It is urged that this will prevent citizens of other states from trying in this court the question whether the state court had jurisdiction. Not so. If the state court had no jurisdiction, and the defendant does not appear, its proceedings are all void, and may be sliown to be so in an action brought in this court against any one who meddles with the person or property of the defendant under the color of such proceedings. The only objections which the defendant will be precluded from trying here are technical objections, which do not affect the merits; and I see no good reason why he should not be prevented from trying them here.”

These remarks have been referred to as obiter dicta, and unnecessary to the decision of the case. This is hardly a proper statement of their effect. Mr. Justice Curtis put his decision on two grounds, either of which sustains his conclusion, and the statement of neither, therefore, was an obiter dictum.

In Bushnell v. Kennedy, 9 Wall. 387, a firm of citizens of Louisiana sued in the state court of Louisiana a citizen of Connecticut on an obligation assigned by the original owner to the plaintiffs. The defendant filed a petition for removal into the circuit court of the United States for the district, and the case, after having reached that court, on motion was remanded to the state court, on the ground that under the eleventh section of the judiciary act the plaintiffs could not maintain a suit in a court of the United States without averring in the petition that their assignors were citizens of another state than that of the plaintiffs. The order remanding the cause was carried on error to the supreme court of the United States.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
65 F. 941, 13 C.C.A. 222, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 2276, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wabash-western-ry-v-brow-ca6-1895.