Burlington Ry Co v. Dunn

• Decision Date: 27 May 1887
• Citation: 7 S.Ct. 1262,30 L.Ed. 1159,122 U.S. 513
• Parties: BURLINGTON, C. R. & N. RY. CO. v. DUNN, by another, his Guardian ad Litem . 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

122 U.S. 513

7 S.Ct. 1262

30 L.Ed. 1159

BURLINGTON, C. R. & N. RY. CO. v. DUNN, by another, his Guardian ad Litem.¹

May 27, 1887.

Eppa Hunton and Jeff. Chandler, for plaintiff in error.

Enoch Totten and C. D. O'Brien, for defendant in error.

WAITE, C. J.

This suit was brought in the district court of Ramsey county, Minnesota, by Charles L. Dunn, a minor, to recover damages for personal injuries which he had received while traveling as a passenger on the railroad of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railway Company. The company answered the complaint in the action, and then filed a petition under section 639 of the Revised Statutes, verified by the oath of its president, for the removal of the suit to the circuit court of the United States for the district of Minnesota, on the ground of prejudice and local influence. The petition was accompanied by the necessary security. It set forth that the railway company was an Iowa corporation, and consequently, in law, a citizen of that state, and Dunn, the plaintiff, a citizen of Minnesota. Under section 639 a suit cannot be removed from a state court to a circuit court of the United States, except it be one between a citizen of the state in which the suit was brought and a citizen of another state, and then only by the citizen of the latter state. Immediately on the presentation of the petition for removal, the attorney for the plaintiff filed a counter-affidavit to the effect that the plaintiff was not a citizen of Minnesota, but of the territory of Montana. No further proof being offered on this point, the court ruled that a case for removal had not been made out, and that the suit must be retained for trial. Accordingly a trial was afterwards had in the state court, which resulted in a judgment against the company. An appeal was then taken to the supreme court of the state, where the judgment of the district court was in all respects affirmed, including the rulings on the question of removal. To reverse that judgment this writ of error was brought.

The assignment of errors presents but a single question, and that is whether, as, after the petition for removal had been filed, the record showed on its face that the state court ought to proceed no further, it was competent for that court to allow an issue of fact to be made upon the statements in the petition, and to retain the suit, because on that issue the railway company had not shown by testimony that the plaintiff was actually a citizen of Minnesota.

It must be confessed that previous to the cases of Stone v. South Carolina, 117 U. S. 432, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 799, and Carson v. Hyatt, 118 U. S. 279, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1050, (decided at the last term,) the utterances of this court on that question had not always been as clear and distinct as they might have been. Thus, in Gordon v. Longest, 16 Pet. 97, in speaking o removals under section 12 of the judiciary act of 1789, it was said, (page 104:) 'It must be made to appear to the satisfaction of the state court that the defendant is an alien, or a citizen of some other state than that in which the suit was brought;' and in Railway Co. v. Ramsey, 22 Wall. 328, that 'if, upon the hearing of the petition, it is substained by the proof, the state court can proceed no further.' In other cases expressions of a similar character are found, which seem to imply that the state courts are at liberty to consider the actual facts, as well as the law arising on the face of the record, after the presentation of the petition for removal. At the last term it was found that this question had become a practical one, about which there was a difference of opinion in the state courts, and to some extent in the circuit courts; and so, in deciding Stone v. South Carolina, we took occasion to say: 'All issues of fact made upon the petition for removal must be tried in the circuit court, but the state court is at liberty to determine for itself whether, on the face of the record, a removal has been effected.' It is true, as was remarked by the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts in Amy v. Manning, 144 Mass. 153, 10 N. E. Rep. 737, that this was not necessary to the decision in that case; but it was said on full consideration, and with the view of announcing the opinion of the court on that subject. Only two weeks after that case was decided, Carson v. Hyatt came up for determination, in which the precise question was directly presented, as the allegation of citizenship in the petition for removal was contradicted by a statement in the answer, and it became necessary to determine what the fact really was. We there affirmed what had been said in Stone v. South Carolina, and decided that it...