Buford v. Strother

Decision Date01 January 1881
Citation10 F. 406
PartiesBUFORD & CO. v. STROTHER & CONKLIN. JOHN DERE & CO. v. STROTHER & E. CONKLIN. BOYD, Adm'r, etc., v. BRADISH and another.
CourtUnited States Circuit Court, District of Iowa

Reed &amp Marsh and Willett & Willett, for the motion.

Martin Murphy & Lynch and Brown & Wellington, contra.

LOVE D.J.

The foregoing cases are now before us upon motions to remand the same to the state courts from which they were brought into this court. The motions to remand are all placed by counsel upon the same general grounds. It is insisted as to each of these cases that it is a proceeding supplemental to the original cause out of which it grew, and being a mere appendage to the judgment rendered in the original case it cannot be separated from the same and brought for adjudication here. These several motions may therefore be considered together.

There is no question of jurisdiction in any of these cases, as far as citizenship and the amount involved are concerned.

The first two causes are proceedings by garnishment. The plaintiffs in these cases obtained judgments against the defendants in the state court, caused certain parties to be garnished, and having taken issue upon the answers of the garnishees, the plaintiff removed the issues thus made for determination into this court. The original defendant and the garnishees now move to remand.

In the third case the plaintiff, a citizen of Wisconsin, obtained a judgment in the state court against an Iowa corporation, and having failed to obtain satisfaction of the judgment he seeks by this action to make the present defendants, who are stockholders in the corporation, liable, in pursuance of chapter 181, title 9, of the Code of Iowa. The plaintiff in the present action against the defendants, one of whom is a director and the other a stockholder in the corporation, sets out his judgment and the return of execution nulla bona charges the defendants with certain alleged frauds to his injury within the provisions of the statute; and prays judgment for his damages. The plaintiff caused the proceedings against the stockholders to be removed into this court. The defendants move to remand to the state court.

What is the true principle applicable to this class of removal cases? By what rule or criterion may we determine whether or not a proceeding which is merely auxiliary to the main judgment or decree may be transferred from the state to the federal court? It is idle to say that a supplemental proceeding cannot be removed because it is an appendage or sequence of the original suit. This is, at best, but reasoning in a circle. It is as if one were to affirm that a supplemental proceeding cannot be removed because it is a supplemental proceeding. It is, in fact, substituting one form of words fro another form of words. We must, if possible, find some other principle to guide our judgment in such cases. It seems to me that the true principle is this: Where the supplemental proceeding is in its character a mere mode of execution or of relief, inseparably connected with the original judgment or decree, it cannot be removed, notwithstanding the fact that some new controversy or issue between the plaintiff in the original action and a new party may arise out of the proceeding. But where the supplemental proceeding is not merely a mode of execution or relief, but where it, in fact, involves an independent controversy with some new and different party, it may be removed into the federal court; always, of course, assuming that otherwise the proper jurisdictional facts exist. Every court must, in the nature of things, have the right, as well as the power, to carry its own judgments into execution. To take from any court the prerogative of executing its own judgments by proper process or by supplemental proceedings, when necessary, would be to cripple its jurisdiction in a most essential matter. It would, therefore, be difficult to persuade us that congress meant by the provision in the act of 1875 for the removal of 'suits of a civil nature' to authorize the transfer of controversies growing out of mere modes of execution and relief, thus directly interfering with the state courts in the execution of their own judgments. It is not in this sense that the words 'suits of a civil nature' are ordinarily used.

Now the process of garnishment after judgment is clearly a mode of execution. Its purpose is to obtain satisfaction of the judgment out of the debtor's effects which may be in a third person's hands. The garnishment, therefore, is inseparably connected with the judgment. If money is realized it is to be applied to the satisfaction of the...

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16 cases
  • Travelers Prop. Cas. & Travelers Indem. Co. v. Good
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
    • July 27, 2012
    ...an independent controversy with some new and different party, it may be removed into the federal court.” Buford v. Strother, 10 F. 406, 407 (C.C.D.Iowa 1881) (Love, J.). A citation proceeding (or a garnishment proceeding, as it is called in most jurisdictions) may often be “merely a mode of......
  • Stark–romero v. the Nat'l R.R. Passenger Co. (amtrak)
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico
    • January 12, 2011
    ...A. Miller, supra § 3721, at 36 (footnotes omitted). As the Honorable J.M. Love, United States District Judge, stated in Buford v. Strother, 10 F. 406 (C.C.D.Iowa 1881): It seems to me that the true principle is this: Where the supplemental proceeding is in its character a mere mode of execu......
  • Mach v. Triple D Supply Llc
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico
    • February 28, 2011
    ...A. Miller, supra § 3721, at 36 (footnotes omitted). As the Honorable J.M. Love, United States District Judge, stated in Buford v. Strother, 10 F. 406 (C.C.D.Iowa 1881): It seems to me that the true principle is this: Where the supplemental proceeding is in its character a mere mode of execu......
  • Ge Betz, Inc. v. Zee Co.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
    • May 3, 2013
    ...fighting about Harris's priority as Zee's secured creditor. As we pointed out in Travelers, 689 F.3d at 724 (quoting Buford v. Strother, 10 F. 406, 407 (C.C.D.Iowa 1881)), “ ‘where the supplemental proceeding is not merely a mode of execution or relief, but where it, in fact, involves an in......
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