Little v. Giles

• Decision Date: 01 November 1886
• Citation: 30 L.Ed. 269,118 U.S. 596,7 S.Ct. 32
• Parties: LITTLE and others v. GILES and others. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

118 U.S. 596

7 S.Ct. 32

30 L.Ed. 269

LITTLE and others v. GILES and others.¹

November 1, 1886.

Nathan S. Harwood, John H. Ames, Turner M. Marquette, and Walter J. Lamb, for appellants.

J. M. Woolworth, for appellees.

BRADLEY, J.

The original bill in this case was filed in January, 1882, in the district court of Lancaster county, in the state of Nebraska, to quiet the title of the complainants, some 70 in number, to certain lots of land in and about the town of Lincoln, in that state, severally owned by them, (as they allege,) and derived under conveyances in fee from one Edith J. Dawson. The bill alleges that Jacob Dawson died seized of the lands in 1869, and by his will, dated June 15 of that year, gave to his wife, the said Edith, all his real and personal estate, to be and remain hers, with full power, right, and authority to dispose of the same as to her should seem meet and proper, so long as she should remain his widow, upon the express condition that if she should marry again then that all the estate, or whatever might remain, should go to the testator's surviving children, share and share alike, and appointed his wife executrix; that she duly proved the will, and afterwards, in order to raise money to pay the debts of her deceased husband, and advance her children, made the conveyances referred to, pretending to be, and the defendants represented that she was, authorized by the power given her in the will to convey the property in fee. The bill states these conveyances, and alleges that the complainants, or their grantors, had severally erected expensive buildings and made valuable imporovements on the lands. The bill further states that the said Edith afterwards, on the fifteenth of November, 1879, was reputed to have intermarried with one Pickering, and that upon this marriage the children and heirs of the said Jacob Dawson, namely, William R. Dawson, Albert L. Dawson, and others named in the bill, claimed to be seized in fee under the said will, and fraudulently conspired with one Highland H. Wheeler and one Lionel C. Burr, attorneys, to cloud and incumber the titles of the com- plainants by various suits at law, and to extort money from them, and that for this purpose the said heirs, without any consideration, but for the pretended consideration of $75,000, executed and delivered to said Wheeler and Burr a pretended deed or deeds for said lands, in consideration whereof it was agreed that the latter should pay and deliver to said heirs one-fourth part of whatever they could extort from the complainants, and retain the balance for themselves: and that further to carry out this fraudulent scheme Wheeler and Burr, on the twenty-seventh of April, 1880, for the purpose of prosecuting complainants in the United States courts, and for no other consideration whatever, executed a pretended deed for said lands to one Ezekiel Giles, father-in-law of said Burr, a man of no property or means, who resided in Iowa; and that they have already commenced several vexatious suits in ejectment in said courts against the complainants, and threaten to commence others. The bill makes Giles, Wheeler, and Burr and the Dawson heirs defendants, and prays against all of them an injunction, a decree to quiet title, and to cancel the fraudulent conveyances made by Dawson's heirs to Wheeler and Burr, and by Wheeler and Burr to Giles, to establish the complainants' title, and for further relief.

Wheeler and Burr and three of the heirs of Dawson, namely, Albsrt L. Dawson, M. S. Dawson, and Melita C. D. Tillman, filed a disclaimer of any right, title, or interest in the property; and affidavits were filed by 31 of the co-complainants denying that they had authorized their names to be used in the bill, and repudiating all connection with it.

Giles then, on the twenty eighth of February, 1882, presented a petition to remove the cause, as against him, to the circuit court of the United States for the district of Nebraska, alleging that he was and is a citizen of Iowa, and that the complainants (those of them who had not repudiated the proceedings) were citizens of Nebraska and other states; that there were as many different controversies as there were complainants, each claiming a separate parcel of the land, and that the several controversies were wholly between each individual plaintiff and himself, and were capable of being fully determined between them without the others being parties; that the several matters in dispute exceed the value of $500, etc. An order to remove the cause was made accordingly.

On the first of March, 1882, a motion was made by the complainants in the circuit court to remand the cause, on the ground, among other things, that it appeared by the pleadings that Giles is not the real party in interest, but that Wheeler and Burr and the heirs of Jacob Dawson are the really interested parties, and that the action is brought in this court (the circuit court) for their benefit; that all these parties are residents of Nebraska, except Giles, who is a mere nominal defendant. The motion to remand was not granted, although no action of the court on the subject at this time appears in the record; but it does appear afterwards, as will be shown hereafter, that the motion to remand was refused. On the fifth of April, 1882, Giles filed his answer and a cross-bill. The answer denies the charge of fraud, but admits that the only ocnsideration of the deed from Dawson's heirs to Wheeler and Burr was $200, and an agreement to pay the heirs one-third of the proceeds which Wheeler and Burr might recover. It denies that the deed to Giles was made for the purpose of suing in the courts of the United States. It states the marriage of the widow, Edith, and insists that her deeds conveyed only an estate during her widowhood; and that the title derived by Giles from the heirs of Jacob Dawson is valid. It sets out the proceedings in various suits brought against some of the complainants, particularly one in which the judgment was brought to this court, by which the will of Dawson was construed in favor of Giles and against the title of complainants. Giles v. Little, 104 U. S. 291.

The cross-bill is filed against all the complainants who did not repudiate the suit. It describes the different tracts held by the several complainants; alleges that they took with full knowledge of the will; that they have received large amounts of rents and profits; that their pretensions are a cloud on Giles' title; and prays for a construction of the will, a decree to quiet title, an account of rents and profits, an injunction, a receiver, etc. The complainants answered the cross-bill, among other things denying that Giles had any real interest, and again raising the question of jurisdiction. It is unnecessary to notice the other pleadings in the cause. The parties went to proofs, and on the final hearing the original bill was dismissed in June, 1883, and an account of the improvements erected by the complainants, and of the rents and profits received by them, was ordered to be taken under the cross-bill, and in September, 1884, a decree was rendered in favor of Giles directing a surrender of the property held by the complainants, respectively, on payment of the difference, in each case, between the value of the improvements erected and the rents and profits received. An appeal was taken from each of these decrees.

The first question to be considered is the jurisdiction of the circuit court to hear and determine the case. The complainants contested that jurisdiction from the time of the filing of the petition of removal, and a great deal of evidence was taken in reference to the charge that the deed to Giles was collusively made for the purpose of making a case for the federal courts.

But, before examining that matter, there is another aspect of the question which presents itself on the face of the pleadings as they stood when the petition for removal was filed. The bill charged the defendants as co-conspirators in a scheme to raise a cloud on the title of the complainants, and to defraud them of their property. According to the allegations of the bill, the deed to Giles was a link in the chain of fraudulent acts charged. We have repeatedly held that a suit brought against several defendants, some of whom are citizens of the same state with the plaintiff, charging them all as joint contractors or joint trespassers, cannot be removed into the United States court by those who are citizens of another state, although they allege in their petition for removal that they are not jointly interested or liable with the other defendants, and that their controversy with the plaintiff is a separate one. We think that the present case is one of that kind. The bill, as we have said, charges the defendants jointly. Giles could not, by merely making contrary averments in his petition for re- moval, and setting up a case inconsistent with the allegations of the bill, segregate himself from the other defendants, and thus entitle himself to remove the case into the United States court. This matter has been fully considered in the following cases: Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Ide, 114 U. S. 52; S. C. 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 735; Farmington v. Pillsbury, 114 U. S. 138; S. C. 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 807; Pirie v. Tvedt, 115 U. S. 41; S. C. 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1034, 1161; Crump v. Thurber, 115 U. S. 56; S. C. 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1154; Starin v. New York, 115 U. S. 248; S. C. 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 28; Sloane v. Anderson, 117 U. S. 278; S. C. 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 730; Insurance Co. v. Huntington, 117 U. S. 280; S. C. 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 733; Core v. Vinal, 117 U. S. 347; S. C. 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 67; Mining Co. v. Canal Co., 118 U. S. 264; S. C. 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1034.

In Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Ide, the suit was originally brought by Ide in the supreme court of New York against several railroad companies forming a continuous line, including the plaintiff in error, to recover damages for the loss of cotton...