Ex parte the Park Square Automobile Station, Petitioner. riginal

• Decision Date: 11 June 1917
• Docket Number: No. 31,O,31
• Parties: EX PARTE THE PARK SQUARE AUTOMOBILE STATION, Petitioner. riginal
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

244 U.S. 412

37 S.Ct. 732

61 L.Ed. 1231

EX PARTE THE PARK SQUARE AUTOMOBILE STATION, Petitioner.

No. 31, Original.

Submitted May 21, 1917.

Decided June 11, 1917.

Mr. Edward C. Stone for petitioner.

Mr. Robert G. Dodge for respondent.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

Upon the ground that the American Locomotive Company, a corporation created under the laws of New York was carrying on business in the state of New Hampshire and amenable to the jurisdiction of the courts of that state, the petitioner, the Park Square Automobile Station, a Maine corporation, commenced its suit for breach of contract against the American Locomotive Company in a New Hampshire state court. In such court, after service upon it, the Locomotive Company prayed a removal of the cause, not to the district court of the United States for the district of New Hampshire, but to the district court of the United States for the southern district of New York, and its prayer to this effect was denied by the state court. Some time thereafter the prayer for removal was renewed, modified, however, by asking that the removal be ordered to the district court of the United States for the northern district of New York on the ground that the corporation was an inhabitant of that district and had its principal place of business there. This request being also denied, the Locomotive Company, executing a bond for removal, filed the record in the district court of the United States for the northern district of New York. The Automobile Company thereupon moved to remand, not on the ground that the case was not a removable one, but because it was solely entitled to be removed to the proper district; that is, from the state court in New Hampshire to the United States district court of that state. This motion having been overruled (222 Fed. 979), the case was brought directly here upon the theory that the alleged error resulting from the refusal to remand was susceptible of being reviewed although no final judgment had been entered in the cause. At this term the writ of error taken for the purpose stated was dismissed because there was no final judgment (244 U. S. 633, 61 L. ed. ——, 37 Sup. Ct. Rep. 481), and thereupon, on petition to that effect, a rule to show cause why a mandamus should not be granted, directing the district court to reverse its ruling refusing to remand the cause, was allowed, and on a return of the dis- trict court to that rule the subject is before us for consideration.

The contention of the petitioner is that manifest error was committed in taking jurisdiction on a removal of the cause from the state court of New Hampshire since the proper court, upon the assumption that the case was removable, was the district court of the United States for the district of New Hampshire, and that court alone.

At the threshold, however, we are met by the suggestion that, conceding, for the sake of the argument, that the lower court erred in refusing to remand and in taking jurisdiction, as such error was susceptible of being reviewed by the regular methods provided by the statute, that is, by certificate and direct review on the question of jurisdiction alone after final judgment, or by review of the circuit court of appeals where allowed if the whole case were taken to that court, or by the exercise by this court of its power to issue a writ...