Greenwalt v. Tucker

• Decision Date: 27 March 1882
• Citation: 10 F. 884
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri
• Parties: GREENWALT v. TUCKER and others. [1]

10 F. 884

GREENWALT v. TUCKER and others. ^[1]

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Missouri.

March 27, 1882

Monk &amp Monk, for plaintiff.

Charles Gibson, for defendants.

TREAT D.J.

This is an action of ejectment against three defendants, charging them with being in possession of the premises. There was a joint answer, in which there was no denial of the joint possession as averred; and hence the suggestion that the judgment for damages against all the defendants was erroneous, has no foundation in law or in the pleadings or in the facts agreed.

This case was heard on an agreed statement of facts, which has the force of a special verdict. The plaintiff contends that therefore, nothing is open for consideration or review on this motion, except the conclusions of law upon such agreed statement. That point would be well taken if the motion embraced only what had heretofore been before the court, but it urges, supported by affidavits, that from facts brought to the knowledge of defendants since the trial, and which could not, by due diligence, have been previously ascertained, a fraud on the jurisdiction of the court had been perpetrated in this, to-wit: That the plaintiff had no interest in the controversy; that one Reinders, having the tax title in question, executed and acknowledged a deed in blank as to the grantee; that he left that paper with his attorney 'for collection,' (whatever that may mean;) that said attorney filled the blank with the name of the non-resident plaintiff for the mere purpose of bringing suit in her name in the United States court, she not having paid any consideration therefor. The question involved is not free from the embarrassments arising from several decisions, mainly concerning the transfer of promissory notes, etc. Under the judiciary act (1789) the transfer of such notes, etc., even bona fide and for value, was subjected to a restriction, in order to avoid an attempt to draw into the federal courts the adjudication of questions therein which could be as well and ought to be determined in the state courts, in which and under whose laws said contracts were made. Hence, that act denied to United States courts jurisdiction, 'of any suit to recover the contents of any promissory note or other chose in action in favor of an assignee, unless a suit might have been prosecuted in such court to recover the said contents if no assignment had been made, except in cases of foreign bills of exchange. ' Under that act there have been many decisions, which it is not necessary to review.

The act of 1875, which has in many respects enlarged the jurisdiction of United States courts to an almost indefinite extent contains this provision:

'Nor shall any circuit or district court have cognizance of any suit founded on contract in favor of an assignee, unless a suit might have been prosecuted in such court, to recover thereon, if no assignment had been made, except in cases of promissory notes, negotiable by the law merchant, and bills of exchange.'

The change in the language of the act of 1875, on the subject quoted, may be only another form of expressing, in the light of decisions, what had been held to be the true interpretation of the act of 1789. However that may be, the various acts of congress, and the better decisions thereunder, look to the preservation of the constitutional rights of citizens, to a judicial determination of their controversies in the federal courts, when fairly entitled thereto, and to a prevention of fraudulent or other contrivances, whereby the federal should supersede, or be substituted for, the more rightful jurisdiction of state courts.

There are several cases in which it is held that a bona fide transfer for value, although made for the purpose of giving jurisdiction to a federal court, should be held valid for jurisdictional purposes. Some of these cases are noted in Marion v. Ellis, 10 FED.REP 410. If any of said cases have gone so far as to hold that a formal...