Brooks v. Bailey

• Decision Date: 01 January 1881
• Citation: 9 F. 438
• Parties: BROOKS v. BAILEY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Vermont

9 F. 438

BROOKS v. BAILEY.

United States Circuit Court, D. Vermont.

October Term, 1881

Eleazer R. Hard, for plaintiff.

George Wilkins and Henry Ballard, for defendant.

WHEELER D.J.

This is a bill in equity in which the orator sets himself up as of Boston, in the state of Massachusetts, and a citizen of that state, and the defendant as of Stowe, in the state of Vermont, and a citizen of that state. The defendant has pleaded that at the time of the bringing of the bill he was and now is, a citizen of the state of New Hampshire, and that neither he nor the orator then was or now is a citizen of the state of Vermont; and this plea has been argued. By the provisions of the constitution the judicial power of the United States was made to extend to controversies between citizens of different states. Article 3, Sec. 2. By the judiciary act of 1789, congress conferred upon the circuit courts jurisdiction of all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity, of the required amount, between a citizen of the state where the suit is brought and a citizen of another state. Chapter 20, Sec. 11; 1 St.at Large, 78.

At the same time, it was provided that no civil suit should be brought therein against an inhabitant of the United States by original process in any other district than that whereof he should be an inhabitant, or wherein he should be found, at the time of serving the writ. Id.

These provisions continued in force until the act of March 3, 1875. Rev. St. Sec. 629; Id. Sec. 739. The former was the law which conferred jurisdiction in this class of cases; the latter was a limitation upon the place where suits might be brought for the ease of defendants. Both were operative in determining where the place might be. McMicken v Webb, 11 Pet. 25. The act of March 3, 1875, extended the jurisdiction to all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity, of the required amount, in which there should be a controversy between citizens of different states, without limiting it to depend at all upon citizenship of either party in the state where the suit should be brought; but retained the limitation upon the bringing of suits in other districts than that whereof the defendant should be an inhabitant or in which he should be found. It has been argued that because this limitation is in substantially the same language in the act of 1875 that it was in the act of 1789, it must receive substantially the same...