Green v. Elbert
| Decision Date | 10 September 1894 |
| Docket Number | 400. |
| Parties | GREEN v. ELBERT et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
In error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Colorado.
Action by Thomas A. Green against Samuel H. Elbert and others for damages for conspiracy to cause plaintiff's disbarment. Action dismissed. Plaintiff appeals.
JURISDICTION-- DISBARMENT IN STATE COURTS.
A federal court has no jurisdiction of an action for damages for conspiracy to disbar an attorney from practice in state courts, his right to practice in federal courts not being affected thereby, though the disbarment was for statements made in a federal court.
T. A Green and J. M. Washburn, for plaintiff in error.
Frank C. Goudy, Joseph C. Helm, M. A. Rogers, and M. J. Stair, for defendants in error.
Before CALDWELL and SANBORN, Circuit Judges, and THAYER, District judge.
The plaintiff in error, Thomas A. Green, had been duly admitted to practice law in the courts of the state of Colorado, and afterwards, upon a proceeding instituted for that purpose in the supreme court of that state, that court disbarred him. He thereupon brought this action for damages in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Colorado against Samuel H. Elbert, Joseph C. Helm, and William E Beck, judges of the supreme court who rendered the judgment of disbarment, and against Merrick A. Rogers, Lucius P Marsh, and J. Jay Joslin, alleging that there was no cause for his disbarment, and that the judgment of disbarment was the result of a conspiracy among all the defendants to willfully, maliciously, and corruptly oppress and wrong him. The citizenship of the parties is not alleged, and a demurrer to the complaint for want of jurisdiction was sustained, and this ruling of the lower court is assigned for error. It is contended that the subject-matter of the action is such as to give the circuit court jurisdiction. This contention is rested on the alleged conspiracy, and on the fact that the proceeding in the supreme court of the state to disbar the plaintiff, and which resulted in the judgment of the disbarment, was based on the contents of a bill in equity filed in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Colorado by the plaintiff as an attorney for the complainants in that suit. The judgment of disbarment in the state courts of the United States. The plaintiff derived his right to practice law in the state courts from the constitution and laws of the state, and not from the constitution and laws of the United States; and any invasion of this right through a conspiracy or otherwise was an invasion of his right as a citizen of the state, for which he must seek redress in the state courts in the absence of the requisite diverse citizenship, which alone could give the federal court jurisdiction. The enforcement act of 1870 and the civil rights bill of 1875 have no application to the case. It would serve no useful purpose to set out these acts, and quote from the decisions of the supreme court construing them, and the constitutional provisions...
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