Day v. Oatis

• Decision Date: 19 December 1904
• Citation: 85 Miss. 128,37 So. 559
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: REUBEN N. DAY v. BEATRICE F. OATIS ET AL

37 So. 559

85 Miss. 128

REUBEN N. DAY v. BEATRICE F. OATIS ET AL

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 19, 1904

FROM the chancery court of Scott county, HON. JAMES L. MCCASKILLS Chancellor.

Mrs Oatis and others, all citizens of Mississippi, appellees were complainants in the court below. The suit was one to remove clouds from title to land. Day, appellant, a citizen of the state of Minnesota, and a corporation of Mississippi the Kreutzer-Winton Company, which disclaimed any interest in the land sued for, were defendants. From an order refusing to transfer the cause to the federal court, on petition of defendant Day, he appealed to the supreme court. The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Cause remanded.

Green &amp Green, for appellant.

It was error to refuse to grant the petition of R. N. Day to remove the cause to the federal court and to sustain the demurrer of complainants thereto, after the Kreutzer-Winton Company had disclaimed.

It is manifest that the right of removal existed on two several and independent grounds: First, because there was but a single defendant, and he was a non- resident and entitled to remove if the suit had been against him alone, and it became such when the disclaimer was filed; and second, because independently of this the cause was a separable controversy as to Day, complete relief could be granted to the complainants as against him without the presence of any other defendants and entirely independent of any of their rights.

As said in 1 Desty's Fed. Proc. (9th ed.), 473: "If a bill to quiet title is filed against several persons as tenants in common, one of them may remove it." Field v. Lownsdale, Deady, 288.

The contention that the federal court would be without jurisdiction surely cannot be meant seriously, as this is a plain equity suit for the cancellation of clouds upon title, and the federal courts are just as competent to act in the premises as the state courts, and can grant exactly the same relief as would be given in the local tribunals. It is the boast of the federal courts that a citizen never loses a single right by invoking their jurisdiction and that they will always administer the same measure of right as the local courts.

Under the universal rule where a new equitable remedy is given by state statutes or an equitable right previously existing is so enlarged, the federal court will assume to enforce the same to the same extent and in the same manner as the state courts, subject only to the limitation that the rights granted by the seventh amendment are not infringed, whereby a jury trial is granted to defendants under certain circumstances. In the case at bar the lands are timber lands, and there is no averment in the pleadings, in the bill, whereby it is shown that this defendant is now, or ever has been, in possession; and presuming all things against the pleader, we are at liberty to assume, and do so for the purpose of argument, that said lands are new, wild and uncultivated, and are in actual possession of no one, so that an action of ejectment could not be maintained.

On this proposition Pine Land Co. v. Hall, 105 Fed. C. C. A., 5th (1900), 88, before Pardee, McCormick, and Shelby, circuit judges, this precise section of our code and the remedy thereby enlarged came under review in our federal circuit court of appeals, and there Justice Shelby said: "The first question raised is as to the jurisdiction of the circuit court. The original bill was filed in the chancery court of Pearl River county, Mississippi. The plaintiff was a Mississippi corporation, and the defendant a citizen of Michigan. The value of the land exceeded $ 2,000. On petition of the defendant the case was duly removed from the state court to the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of Mississippi. The plaintiff moved to remand the case to the state court because the circuit court has no jurisdiction in the premises, there being no ground of equity jurisdiction stated upon the face of the bill of complaint, save under a statute of the state of Mississippi, which cannot enlarge the equity powers of the circuit courts.

"The seventh amendment to the constitution of the United States declares that in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.

"This amendment is a limitation on the equity jurisdiction of federal courts. If the legislature of the state, providing for the trial of common-law cases in equity, was binding on federal equity courts, this amendment of the constitution could be made useless. Such state statutes do not control the federal courts. A state statute, therefore, which confers jurisdiction of common-law cases on state equity courts, thus dispensing with trial by jury, will not be admitted in federal courts of equity." Scott v. Neely, 140 U.S. 106 Cates v. Allen, 149 U.S. 451.

It is well settled, however, that an enlargement of equitable rights may be administered as well by the United States courts as by the state courts. Clark v. Smith, 13 Pet., 195; Broderick's Will, 21 Wall., 503, 520; Greely v. Lowe, 155 U.S. 5875; Smyth v. Ames, 169 U.S. 466.

The result of the decision of the supreme court is that a state statute which enlarges equitable rights will be enforced and administered in the United States courts in all cases where its enforcement and administration do not conflict with the rights of the parties to a jury trial. Hipp v. Babin, 19 How., 271; Thompson v. Railway Co., 6 Wall., 134; Insurance Co. v. Bailey, 13 Wall., 616; Grand Chute v. Winegar, 15 Wall., 373; Buzzard v. Huston, 119 U.S. 347; Harding v. Guice, 80 F. 162; Green v. Turney, 98 F. 756.

To review and quote from these cases would serve no useful purpose. That work has already been done by Judge Taft, speaking for the United States circuit court of appeals for the sixth circuit in Grether v. Wright, 75 F. 742. We will, however, quote the following from an opinion of the supreme court delivered by Justice Brown: "This court has held in a multitude of cases that where the law of a particular state gave a remedy in equity, as, for instance, a bill by a party in or out of possession to quiet title to lands, such remedy would be enforced in the federal courts, if it did not infringe upon the constitutional rights of the parties to a trial by jury." Greely v. Lowe, 155 U.S. 75; Brinkerhoff v. Broomfield, 94 F. 426; Bank v. Hubbard, 105 Fed. C. J. R., 1900, 814; Grether v. Wright, 75 Fed. C. C. A., 6th, 1897, 746.

As said by Mr. Justice Swayne in Ex parte McNeil, 13 Wall., 243: "This principle may be laid down as axiomatic in our national jurisprudence. A party forfeits nothing by going into a federal tribunal. Jurisdiction having attached, his case is tried there upon the same principles, and its determination is governed by the same consideration, as if it had been brought in the proper state tribunal of the same locality. Robinson v. Campbell, 3 Wheat., 223; United States v. Knight, 14 Pet., 315; Steamboat Orleans v. Phoebus, 11 In., 184; Thompson v. Phillips, 1 Baldwin, 272; Lorman v. Clark, 2 McLean, 568; Ex parte Biddle, 2 Mason, 472; Johnson v. Vandyke, 6 McLean, 423; Prescott v. Hevers, 4 Mason (s.c., Rose's Notes on U. S. Rep., 674).

As said in Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall., 221: "A party by going into a national court does not lose any right of appropriate remedy of which he might have availed himself in the state courts of the same locality. The wise policy of the constitution gives him a choice of tribunal. In the former he may hope to escape the local influences which sometimes disturb the even flow of justice. And in the regular course of procedure, if the amount involved be large enough, he may have access to this tribunal as the final arbiter of his rights." s.c., 7 Rose's Notes on U. S. Rep., 689.

And as said by Mr. Justice Bradley, in Broderick's Will, 21 Wall., 520: "Whilst it is true that alterations in the equitable jurisdiction of the circuit courts of the United States as long as the equitable rights themselves remain, yet an enlargement of equitable rights may be administered by the circuit courts as well as by the courts of the state."

Wherefore it is perfectly manifest that the federal court would have jurisdiction and that the state court's jurisdiction was not exclusive, and as there was but one defendant and there being no amendment making the owners of the other one-half interest parties to the suit, we cannot understand why the petition to remove to the federal court should not have been granted both on the ground of a single non-resident defendant and on further ground that this controversy was severable, and respectfully submit, therefore, that the chancery court erred in taking jurisdiction and that the decree should be reversed and the cause remanded, with instructions to remand the same to the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of Mississippi, or if the chancery court rightly maintains jurisdiction, then the decree should be reversed and the bill dismissed.

Amis & Dunn, for appellees.

Should the cause have been removed to the federal court on the application of R. N. Day? We answer no. In our opinion the action of the court in dismissing the petition for removal was correct. If the cause was not properly a removable one then it follows that to remove it would have been error and would not have given the federal court any jurisdiction of the cause. The federal circuit courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and unless a cause falls within the limitations prescribed by the federal statute touching removal of causes, then the federal court has no jurisdiction, and an erroneous removal of the cause would not confer...