Crane v. Reeder

• Decision Date: 27 January 1874
• Citation: 28 Mich. 527
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Walter Crane v. Edwin Reeder and another

28 Mich. 527

Walter Crane v. Edwin Reeder and another

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 27, 1874

Heard January 7, 1874

Error to Wayne Circuit.

Ejectment. Plaintiff brings error. Reversed.

Determination of the circuit court reversed, with costs.

William P. Wells and S. T. Douglass, for plaintiff in error.

No counsel appeared for defendants in error.

Graves Ch. J. Campbell and Cooley, JJ., concurred. Christiancy, J. did not sit in this case.

OPINION

Graves, Ch. J.

This is a writ of error to the circuit court for the county of Wayne.

The action is an ejectment which the plaintiff commenced several years since in the court below, to recover certain premises situated in Wayne county in this State. The parties proceeded to join issue and thereupon a trial was had before a jury in the court below in November, 1869. A verdict was returned for the defendants, upon which judgment was given in the usual course. The plaintiff then removed the cause to this Court by writ of error, and in July, 1870, we reversed the judgment of the circuit court, and remanded the case for a new trial. During that year the cause was a second time tried before a jury in the court below, and again the jury found for the defendants, and judgment was thereupon entered as before. The plaintiff sued out a second writ of error from this Court, and in April, 1871, we reversed that judgment and remanded the cause for another trial. In November, 1871, a third trial was had before a jury in the circuit court, and again the defendants recovered and obtained judgment, and this judgment the plaintiff also removed here on writ of error, and the same was finally reversed by us in July, 1872, when we again remanded the cause for trial.

After this protracted litigation in the State courts, and these successive trials and judgments upon the merits, and when this Court, pursuant to the regular and lawful requirements of parties, had passed upon every material question connected with the controversy which the great skill and fertility of resource of the gentlemen assisting the parties were able to suggest, and when the cause was standing for trial in the court below under our judgment and mandate, that court, upon the application of the defendants, determined to proceed no further in the cause, and decided that the action should be removed to the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Michigan.

On that determination and decision the plaintiff again brought error. At an early day in the term the defendants moved on several grounds to dismiss the writ, and this motion, upon argument we denied.

When the case came on upon the merits we were assisted by the plaintiff's counsel, but the counsel for the defendants declined to argue, and made no attempt to sustain the action of the court below. If the point to be considered was more questionable than we think it is, we should feel more sensibly than we do now the want of that aid the counsel for the defendants is so able to afford.

The application upon which the circuit court acted and determined is as follows:

"State of Michigan:

In the Circuit Court for the County of Wayne

Walter Crane, Plaintiff, vs. Edwin Reeder and Eliza Reeder, Defendants.

No. 14194.

To the Circuit Court for the County of Wayne:

"The petition of Edwin Reeder and Eliza Reeder, defendants in the above entitled cause, respectfully shows to this honorable court, that they are both aliens and subjects of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and both of foreign birth, and neither of them ever naturalized under the laws of the United States; that the above entitled action was commenced in the circuit court for the county of Wayne, on the 22d of April, A. D. 1869, by Walter Crane, plaintiff, against said petitioners, as defendants, by a declaration filed in said cause, and a copy thereof served on said defendants; that said suit is now pending in the said circuit court for the county of Wayne, being a court in said State of Michigan; and in said suit there is a controversy between said Walter Crane, who was when said suit was brought, and still is, a citizen of the State of Michigan, and these petitioners as defendants, who are aliens and subjects of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and the matter in dispute exceeds the sum of five hundred dollars, exclusive of costs; that said suit has not yet reached its final hearing or trial; and your petitioners now here aver and state,--the said Edwin Reeder for himself, and the said Eliza Reeder for herself,--that they have reason to, and do believe, that from prejudice or local influence, they will not be able to obtain justice in said State court.

"These petitioners therefore pray for the removal of this cause for trial into the next circuit court of the United States, to be held in the district where said suit is pending, to wit: into the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Michigan.

"Your petitioners further pray that the court will accept the surety herewith offered by your petitioners, pursuant to the provisions of law, for your petitioners entering in the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Michigan, on the first day of its next session, copies of said process against them, and of all pleadings, depositions, testimony and other proceedings in said cause, and also for their there appearing in this action, as by the laws of the United States are required to be done upon the removal of a suit into the United States court.

"Your petitioners therefore pray that this Court will proceed no further in this cause, but that it be removed as aforesaid.

"Your petitioners further pray that this Court will grant to your petitioners such other or further or different relief as may be just and proper, and that this Court will make its order according to the allegations and prayer of this petition, or such other or further order in the premises as may be just and right.

Edwin Reeder.

Eliza Reeder.

"D. B. & H. M. Duffield,

Attorneys for Petitioners."

The plaintiff maintains that in view of the actual status of this cause in the State court, and the scope and meaning of the acts of Congress on the subject of removing cases from State to Federal courts, there was no legal warrant or authority for the decision made by the court below in this instance, and that the determination so made is necessarily re-examination here on writ of error, and that this Court cannot decline such re-examination without relinquishing its constitutional jurisdiction and duty. In denying the motion of the defendants to dismiss we reached the conclusion that such a determination as was made by the circuit court was reviewable on writ of error, and that we were not at liberty to refuse to entertain the jurisdiction.

Coming to the merits, it is left us to inquire whether the cause in the posture in which it stood, and marked by the characteristics belonging to it, was open to the disposition made of it by the circuit court.

The very ample discussion which these federal transfer acts have received in a number of courts, has so fully explained and illustrated the subject, and has gone so far in elucidating the scope, object and sense of the acts, that any present attempt in exactly the same path of discussion can scarcely eventuate in more than a restatement of the precise views and reasonings already well announced. It is therefore unadvisable and unnecessary to go over the same identical ground, or even to reproduce the opinions alluded to. It is quite sufficient to cite the cases.--Akerly v. Vilas, 24 Wis. 165; Home Life Ins. Co. v. Dunn, 20 Ohio St. 175; Bryant v. Rich, 106 Mass. 180; Adams Express Co. v. Trego, 35 Md. 47; Burson v. The National Park Bank of N. Y., 40 Ind. 173.

If, after perusing these cases, we proceed to read the several acts of Congress in question under their light and in that of the events which influenced Congress, and reflect upon the status of this cause when the court decided upon the application made for a transfer, the objection taken by the plaintiff to the course of the circuit court will appear to be nearly if not quite unanswerable. Still the question is so vitally important that any additional suggestion possessing even the merit of being only pertinent may be excused. And as there are some considerations which bear upon the matter that do not appear to have been noticed, it is deemed admissible to glance at one or two of them in connection with a few observations upon the form and meaning of the acts of Congress.

In dealing with statutes intended to affect or claimed to affect the continuance of jurisdiction in courts of original and general authority the law has always recognized a principle of construction which served to favor the retention of jurisdiction. As long ago as Charles II. it was laid down as something well settled and understood, that the jurisdiction of the King's bench could not be ousted without particular words in acts of parliament (per Kelynge, C J., in Smith and others, Commissioners of Sewers, 1 Mod. 44); and in Cates v. Knight, 3 T. R., 442, it was declared that the court could not be deprived of its jurisdiction but by express words or by necessary implication, any more than an heir at law of his inheritance. The same view is repeated in Rex v. Morley, 2 Burr. 1040, in Shipman v. Henbest, 4 T. R., 109, and in Crisp v. Bunbury, 8 Bing. 394, and in many other books. In Ex parte Heath and others, 3 Hill 42, it was said by the Supreme Court of New York that the language of an act designed to divest that court of its jurisdiction over the proceedings of inferior tribunals must express the intent with such clearness as to leave no room for doubt. Indeed...