City of Ysleta v. Canda

• Decision Date: 16 April 1895
• Docket Number: 190.
• Citation: 67 F. 6
• Parties: CITY OF YSLETA v. CANDA et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Texas

67 F. 6

CITY OF YSLETA v. CANDA et al.

No. 190.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Texas, El Paso Division.

April 16, 1895

Ernest Dale Owen and Z. B. Clardy, for plaintiff.

Davis Beall & Kemp, for defendants.

MAXEY District Judge.

This is a suit of trespass to try title, brought by the plaintiff against the defendants, in the district court of El Paso county, Tex., to recover a tract of land situated in said county. It is alleged in the original petition filed by the plaintiff in the state court that it, the city of Ysleta, is a municipal corporation in the county of El Paso and state of Texas, duly organized and incorporated under the laws of said state. The defendants seasonably and in proper form filed a petition and bond in the state court for removal of the cause to this court, the petition for removal alleging that the plaintiff is a citizen of the state of Texas, and that the defendants are residents and citizens of the state of New York. In other words, the petition for removal, upon its face, shows that at the time the original petition of the plaintiff was filed in the state court, and at the date of the filing of the petition and bond for removal, the plaintiff was a citizen of the state of Texas, and the defendants citizens of the state of New York. The record was in due time filed by the defendants in this court. The plaintiff now makes a motion to remand the cause to the state court, on the following grounds, to wit '(1) That the plaintiff and defendants are not citizens of different states.

'(2) For the reason that the plaintiff is not a citizen of any state.

'(3) That the plaintiff's petition filed in the said district court of El Paso county does not on its face show any cause for the removal of said suit to the federal court, there having been no other pleadings filed in said cause, and there being nothing in the record, as being made before the removal of said cause, to show any valid reason for removing the same.

'(4) That the petition of defendants filed in the district court of El Paso county does not show cause sufficient for removal of said cause from said district court to this court.'

The questions arising upon the first and second grounds of the motion are neither novel or difficult. In the case of Zambrino v. Railway Co., 38 F. 451, it was said by this court that:

'Whatever doubts may have been formerly expressed by the courts touching the citizenship of corporations for jurisdictional purposes (Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch, 267; Bank v. Deveaux, 5 Cranch, 61 et seq.), the question has been effectually set at rest by later cases and is no longer open to controversy. The present doctrine, as settled by the supreme court, is 'that, where a corporation is created by the laws of a state, the legal presumption is that its members are citizens of the state in which alone the corporate body has a legal existence; and that a suit by or against a corporation in its corporate name must be presumed to be a suit by or against citizens of the state which created the corporate body; and that no averment or evidence to the contrary is admissible for the purposes of withdrawing the suit from the jurisdiction of a court of the United States.' Steamship Co. v. Tugman, 106 U.S. 120, 121, 1 Sup.Ct. 58; Railroad Co. v. Koontz, 104 U.S. 12; Railroad Co. v. Harris, 12 Wall. 81, 82; Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 178; Muller v. Dows, 94 U.S. 445; Cowles v. Mercer Co., 7 Wall. 121; Railroad Co. v. Wheeler, 1 Black. 296, 297; Marshall v. Railroad Co., 16 How. 314 et seq.; Railroad Co. v. Letson, 2 How. 497 et seq.'

But the plaintiff insists that the rule above announced is only applicable to private corporations, and has no reference to corporations organized under state laws for municipal purposes. The case of Cowles v. Mercer Co., supra, is decisive against the contention of the plaintiff. In that case, Cowles, who was a citizen of the state of New York, brought suit in the circuit court of the United States for the Northern district of Illinois against the supervisors of Mercer county, Ill. Mr. Goudy, representing Mercer county, in the supreme court, claimed in his brief that although a private corporation might be deemed a citizen for jurisdictional purposes, yet the same rule would not apply to a municipal corporation. The court, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Chase, disposed of the question in the following language:

'It has never been doubted that a corporation, all the members of which reside in the state creating it, is liable to suit upon its contracts by the citizens of other states; but it was for many years much controverted whether an allegation in a declaration that a corporation defendant was incorporated by a state other than that of the plaintiff, and established within its limits, was a sufficient

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