Carson v. Hyatt Same v. Same

Decision Date10 May 1886
PartiesCARSON v. HYATT and others. (In Error to the Supreme Court of the State of South Carolina.) SAME v. SAME. (Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of South Carolina.) Filed
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

A. G. Magrath, H. E. Young, C. A. Seward, and James Lowndes, for plaintiff error and appellant.

Edward McCrady and Edward McCrady, Jr., for defendant in error and appellee.

WAITE, C. J.

The records in these cases show that William A. Carson, a citizen of South Carolina, died on the seventeenth of August, 1856, leaving a will by which he devised the bulk of his property, real and personal, to his executors, Alexander Robertson and John F. Blacklock, substantially in trust for his widow, Caroline Carson, and his sons William Carson and James P. Carson, but with a power of sale in the executors. Under these circumstances the executors sold a plantation known as 'Dean Hall' to Elias N. Ball, and for the unpaid purchase money he, on the second of March, 1857, executed his bonds conditioned for the payment in all of the sum of $31,000, in five equal annual installments, from January 14, 1857, with interest from March 2d, payable annually, and secured by mortgage on the property. The debts of the estate were all paid in June, 1857, and from that time the executors held the bonds and mortgage of Ball in trust for Mrs. Carson and her two sons. The sons after wards assigned their interest in the bonds to their mother. Mrs. Carson left South Carolina early in 1861, and went to New York to life. She has never since returned to South Carolina. Her son William came of age in 1863, but he left South Carolina before the late civil war, and has been absent ever since. James did not come of age until after the war, and the executor Blacklock was absent from the United States during the whole of it. In March, 1863, the firm of Hyatt, McBurney & Co., doing business in Charleston, bought 'Dean Hall' from Ball, and he, at their request, induced Robertson, the only trustee then in America, to accept payment of the bonds held for Mrs. Carson in confederate treasury notes, and discharge the mortgage. This being done, Ball conveyed the property to Edmund Hyatt, William McBurney, William Hasseltine, Thomas R. McGahan, and Alfred L. Gillespie, who composed the firm of Hyatt, McBurney & Co. On the eighth of May, 1863, Hyatt sold his interest in the firm to his other partners, and executed to them a conveyance of this property among the other assets, and the remaining partners gave to him a bond for $40,000, secured by a mortgage on these premises.

After the war ended Mrs. Carson, then a citizen of New York, brought suit in the circuit court of the United States for the district of South Carolina to re-establish the mortgage, and to set aside the release which had been executed by Robertson, and for a foreclosure. A decree was entered by the circuit court in accordance with the prayer of the bill, but on appeal to this court that decree was reversed for want of proper parties, and the cause sent back for further proceedings. Robertson v. Carson, 19 Wall. 94. When the case got back to the circuit court the required additional parties were made, and another decree was finally entered, establishing the rights of Mrs. Carson, and ordering a sale of the property. This decree was affirmed here at the October term, 1878. McBurney v. Carson, 99 U. S. 567. Hyatt was not a party to that suit, he being then a citizen of New York, the same as Mrs. Carson at that time. Under this decree the property was sold and bought by Mrs. Carson. Hyatt died in New York on the twentieth of September, 1876, leaving a will appointing his daughter, Mary A. Hyatt, executrix, and Joaquin Delmonte, executor. Mary A. Hyatt and Julia Delmonte are devisees under the will, and heirs at law of his estate, and Mary E. Hyatt is his widow, and an heir at law. Joaquin Delmonte is a citizen or subject of Spain, and all the others are citizens of New York. At some time, but precisely when does not appear from the records, these parties filed in the court of common pleas of Charleston, South Carolina, their complaint, which was sworn to on the fifteenth of October, 1879, against William McBurney, William Hasseltine, Alfred L. Gillespie, and Thomas R. McGahan, 'members of the late firm of Hyatt, McBurney & Co.,' and Caroline Carson, for the foreclosure of the mortgage given Hyatt on his retirement from the firm. It does not appear how or by what processs the defendants were brought into court, but there is in the record a stipulation, of which the following is a copy:

'Mary A. Hyatt, as Executrix and as Devisee and Heir at Law of the late Edmund Hyatt; Joaquin Delmonte, Executor of the said Edmund Hyatt; Mary E. Hyatt, Widow and Heir at Law of the said Edmund Hyatt, Deceased; and Julia Delmonte, as Devisee and Heir at Law of the said Edmund Hyatt, v. William McBurney, William Hasseltine, Alfred L. Gillespie, and Thomas R. McGahan, Members of the late Firm of Hyatt, McBurney & Co., and Caroline Carson.

'The time for the defendants in this case to answer having expired, on motion of McCrady & Son, plaintiff's attorneys, it is ordered that the case be referred to W D. CLANCY, Esq., one of the masters of this court, to take tesmony and report the same; and, with the consent of the said plaintiff's attorneys, it is further ordered that the defendant Caroline Carson do have further time to answer the complaint herein, to-wit, until the twenty-fourth day of January next, and that she be allowed to file the same, under the signature of her counsel, who has entered an appearance in the cause, without oath thereto.

'December 16, 1879.

A. P. ALDRICH.

'We consent: MCCRADY & SON.

'A. G. MAGRATH.'

The record shows an answer of Mrs. Carson not under oath, and signed only by her counsel, setting up her defense upon the same facts on which she recovered in the other suit. In this answer it is, among other things, stated that early in 1861 she 'left South Carolina and went to New York, where she has ever since resided and had her domicile.' This answer was filed January 31, 1880, and, on the sixteenth of February, Mrs. Carson presented her petition for the removal of the suit to the circuit court of the United States, the material parts of which are as follows:

'To the Honorable the Judges of the said Court: Your petitioner, Caroline Carson, respectfully showeth that the above-entitled suit is of a civil nature, and is now pending in this court; the matter or amount in dispute is, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred dollars, and is of the value of over ten thousand dollars; that the controversy in the said suit is between citizens of different states, and between citizens of a state and a citizen or subject of a foreign state; that your petitioner was at the beginning of this suit and still is a citizen of the state of Massachusetts; that the said Joaquin Delmonte then was and still is a citizen or subject of Spain; and all the other parties, plaintiffs above mentioned, then were and still are citizens of the state of New York; that William McBurney and Thomas R. McGahan then were and still are citizens of South Carolins; that Alfred L. Gillespie then was and still is a citizen of Tennessee; and William Hasseltine then was and still is a citizen of California. Your petitioner further says that in the abovementioned suit there is a controversy which is wholly between citizens of different states, and between a citizen of a state and a foreign state, namely, between the said plaintiffs and your petitioner, and which can be wholly determined as between them.'

Accompanying this petition was the following affidavit:

'Personally appeared before me James Lowndes, and made oath that he is the attorney of Caroline Carson, and has read her petition for the removal of the said cause to the circuit court of the United States for the district of South Carolina; and that the facts therein stated are true, to the best of his information and belief, save that he cannot aver that Dean Hall is of greater value than five thousand dollars and five hundred dollars; that his information as to the domicile of Hasseltine is drawn from a statement made to him by some person whose name he cannot recall; that his information as to the domicile of Caroline Carson is drawn from these facts, viz.: that about the first July, 1877, he received, in due course of mail, a letter from the said Caroline Carson, dated at Brookline, Massachusetts, in which she informed the deponent that she had made a declaration or affidavit of her change of domicile from New York to Massachusetts; and that deponent continued to receive letters from her in the latter state during the month of July, 1877, and he knows her purpose to have been to become a citizen of Massachusetts; and he knows that she has not in fact, for many years, resided in New York.

'JAMES LOWNDES.'

On the twenty-fifth of March the court refused to stop further proceedings, giving its reasons therefor as follows: 'The plaintiffs in this case, except one, a Spanish subject, are citizens of the state of New York, and the controversy, as appears by the pleadings, is wholly between them and the defendant Caroline Carson, who, in her answer, states that she is also a citizen of that state. She has also filed with her answer an exhibit of a previous case in the United States court relating to the same matter, in which case she was plaintiff, suing...

To continue reading

Request your trial
80 cases
  • George Weston, Ltd. v. N.Y. Cent. R. Co.
    • United States
    • New Jersey Supreme Court
    • 8 Octubre 1935
    ...Co., 204 U. S. 176, 27 S. Ct. 184, 51 L. Ed. 430, 9 Ann. Cas. 757; Crehore v. Ohio & Mississippi R. Co., supra; Carson v. Hyatt, 118 U. S. 279, 6 S. Ct. 1050, 30 L. Ed. 167; Carson v. Dunham, 121 U. S. 421, 7 S. Ct. 1030, 30 L. Ed. 992. Moreover, as indicated, the requisite diversity of cit......
  • Boatmen's Bank of St. Louis v. Fritzlen
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit
    • 4 Marzo 1905
    ... ... by specific allegations upon the same subject ... The ... holder of a prior mortgage or lein is not ... Carolina, 117 U.S. 430, 432, 6 Sup.Ct. 799, 29 L.Ed ... 962; Carson v. Hyatt, 118 U.S. 279, 281, 6 Sup.Ct ... 1050, 30 L.Ed. 167; Crehore ... ...
  • Yarbrough v. Blake
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Western District of Arkansas
    • 8 Enero 1963
    ...jurisdiction. Stone v. State of South Carolina, 117 U.S. 430, 432, 6 S.Ct. 799, 29 L.Ed. 962, 963, (1886); Carson v. Hyatt, 118 U.S. 279, 281, 6 S.Ct. 1050, 30 L.Ed. 167, 168, (1886); Marshall v. Holmes, 141 U.S. 589, 595, 12 S.Ct. 62, 35 L.Ed. 870 (1891); Burlington, C. R. & N. Ry. Co. v. ......
  • Crisp v. Champion Fibre Co
    • United States
    • North Carolina Supreme Court
    • 12 Enero 1927
    ...S. Ct. 251, 49 L. Ed. 462; Burlington, C. R. & N. R. Co. v. Dunn, 122 U. S. 513, 7 S. Ct. 1262, 30 L. Ed. 1159; Carson v. Hyatt, 118 LT. S. 279, 6 S. Ct. 1050, 30 L. Ed. 167; Stone v. South Carolina, 117 U. S. 430, 6 S. Ct. 799, 29 L. Ed. 962; National Steamship Co. v. Tugman, 106 U. S. 118......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT