Bland v. Fleeman

• Decision Date: 20 January 1887
• Citation: 29 F. 669
• Parties: BLAND and others v. FLEEMAN and others.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Arkansas

29 F. 669

BLAND and others v. FLEEMAN and others.

United States District Court, W.D. Arkansas.

January 20, 1887

Syllabus by the Court

All persons who are necessary parties to a suit must be made parties.

All parties whose interests are affected by the suit, or whose concurrence is necessary to a complete determination of the suit, or who have a substantial interest in the subject-matter of the suit, are necessary parties to it; and it cannot proceed without their being made parties.

The law is that those whose interests are in harmony should be joined as plaintiffs or defendants, as the case may be.

To give jurisdiction, there must be subject-matter upon which the court has a right to pass, place over which it can exercise its powers, and all the proper and necessary parties. All of these requisites must exist; and in this suit the interests of all the heirs are in harmony, as against the defendant and all of such heirs must be made parties plaintiff.

To give a federal court jurisdiction, on the ground of a dispute or controversy between citizens of different states, it must appear that all the necessary plaintiffs are citizens of states different from all the necessary defendants. If this state of facts does not exist, there is a failure of jurisdiction. They must exist, before the court, under the law, can exercise the power of hearing and determining a controversy. Proper and necessary parties are as much an element of jurisdiction as any of the other elements of it. If there is a failure of either one of these elements, there is a failure of jurisdiction.

All the heirs to an estate of a decedent, in a suit against an administrator of such estate charging him with having fraudulently converted the assets of the estate, are necessary parties to such suit.

Under the law, and the rules of pleading as they existed in equity before the passage of the act of March 4, 1875, a plea to the jurisdiction in the nature of a plea in abatement, because of the joinder of parties who could not sue in the federal court, must have been filed before an answer to the merits as an answer to the merits, without a plea previously filed was a waiver of the objection. A plea filed simultaneously with an answer to the merits came too late. But this rule is abrogated by the act of 1875.

Under this act it is made the duty of the court, at any time after suit has been brought, to see to it whether the suit really and substantially involves a dispute or controversy properly within its jurisdiction. If it does not do so, it is the duty of the court to dismiss the suit. This may be done when the question is raised by the pleadings, or it may be done by the court sua sponte.

Parties to a suit cannot artificially arrange themselves so as to create a fictitious ground of federal jurisdiction. The court will disregard all such arrangement of parties, and arrange them according to their interest in the suit. It will look to the real facts of the case, as shown by the pleadings.

When a court has properly acquired jurisdiction of a cause by reason of the proper citizenship of the parties, some or any of such parties may, by cross-bill, assert a necessary defense, or set up a right or claim which puts such party in antagonism with his co-defendant. Such cross-bill is treated as ancillary to the main cause properly before the court. Even other persons who are not parties, if the court has first lawfully acquired jurisdiction of the cause, if necessary to protect their rights, may intervene in the suit, regardless of citizenship.

U. M. & G. B. Rose, for plaintiffs.

J. M. Moon, John J. Walker, J. E. Cravens, and Clendening & Sandals, for defendants.

PARKER J.

This is a suit brought by those who are made plaintiffs on the record as a part of the heirs at law of Robert H. Adams, deceased, against Marion F. Fleeman and others. It is charged in the bill that Robert H. Adams dies intestate, leaving a large estate, of which Marion F. Fleeman became administrator; that, as such administrator, he, with the aid and assistance of others who are made defendants, so managed the estate as to cause the greater portion of it to pass into his own hands, and the hands of some of those with whom he conspired, in fraud of the just, legal, and equitable rights of those who, as heirs of the said Robert H. Adams, were legally entitled to the same. All the plaintiffs are citizens of the states of Tennessee and Mississippi.

William W. Adams, Mary Adeline Waddell, Hattie Gray Waddell, and Kate M. Dickey are heirs at law of Robert H. Adams, deceased. William W. Adams is, and was at the time of the bringing of this suit, administrator de bonis non of the estate of Robert H. Adams. William W. Adams, Mary Adeline Waddell, Hattie Gray Waddell, and Kate M. Dickey are made defendants in this suit. They are citizens of the state of Arkansas, and residents of this district, the same state and district in which Marion F. Fleeman, and the other defendants who are charged to have conspired with him, reside.

The prayer of the bill is that said defendants may be required to answer, but not under oath; that the settlements of Marion F. Fleeman, as administrator, may be set aside for fraud; that his accounts as such administrator may be reformed; that Fleeman be required to account for the rents and profits of the lands and ferry franchise, which belonged to the estate of Robert H. Adams, and for all profits made out of his fraudulent transactions in connection with the estate of Robert H. Adams, deceased, and that he be required to pay over the same to your orators, or to said administrator de bonis non; that the said Fleeman be compelled to surrender said lands to your orators, and the other heirs of said Robert H. Adams, deceased; and for such other and proper relief as may be deemed meet, and justice may require.

The defendant Marion F. Fleeman, on May 5, 1884, filed an answer, and at the same date filed a plea in abatement of the suit, because the court has no jurisdiction, for the reason 'that W. W. Adams is one of the heirs at law of the said Robert H. Adams, deceased, and said action was instituted and is prosecuted at his instance, and for his benefit; that said W. W. Adams is, and was at the time of the institution of said action, a citizen of the state of Arkansas, and could not be joined as a plaintiff in the action, and for that reason he was collusively joined as a party defendant, for the purpose of creating a case cognizable in this court.'

The question presented here by this plea to the jurisdiction is whether this record presents a case where there 'is a controversy between citizens of different states. ' There must be this to give the court jurisdiction. There is no controversy disclosed by these pleadings between those who are made plaintiffs by the bill and W. W. Adams, Mary Adeline Waddell, Hattie Gray Waddell, and Kate M. Dickey, who are made defendants by the bill. These last-named parties are heirs at law of the estate of Robert H. Adams, deceased, together with the plaintiffs. Their interest in the result of the suit is identical with the interest of the plaintiffs, and the only controversy disclosed by the pleadings is one between the plaintiffs and W. W. Adams, as heir and administrator, Mary Adeline Waddell, Hattie Gray Waddell, and Kate M. Dickey, on one side, and Fleeman, and those who are charged to have conspired with him to cheat and defraud all the heirs of Robert H. Adams, on the other.

This proposition is evidenced by the pleadings, as the answer of W. W. Adams and the other defendant heirs adopts the bill of the plaintiffs, declares it true in all its allegations, and they pray in such answer for the same relief as that asked for by the plaintiffs.

Then nothing is demanded by the plaintiffs against W. W. Adams and the other defendant heirs. The record, therefore, shows that the interest of W. W. Adams and the other de...