Nat Co v. Tugman

Citation1 S.Ct. 58,106 U.S. 118,27 L.Ed. 87
Decision Date06 November 1882
Docket NumberSTEAM-SHIP
PartiesNAT.CO. v. TUGMAN
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

[Syllabus from page 118 intentionally omitted]

[Statement of Case from pages 118-120 intentionally omitted] John Chetwood, for plaintiff in error.

F. J. Fithian and J. R. Carmichael, for defendant in error.

HARLAN, J.

The underlying question in this case is whether, within the meaning of the constitution and of the statutes determining the jurisdiction of the circuit courts of the United States, and regulating the removal of causes from state courts, a corporation created by the laws of a foreign state may, for the purposes of suing and being sued in the courts of the Union, be treated as a 'citizen' or 'subject' of such foreign state.

In Ohio & M. R. Co. v. Wheeler, 1 Black, 296, the court, speaking by Chief Justice TANEY, said that, in the previous case of Louisville, C. & C. R. Co. v. Letson, 2 How. 497, it had been decided, upon full consideration, 'that where a corporation is created by the laws of a state, the legal presumption is that its members are citizens of the state in which alone the corporate body has a legal existence; and that a suit by or against a corporation, in its corporate name, must be presumed to be a suit by or against citizens of the state which created the corporate body; and that no averment or evidence to the contrary is admissible for the purposes of withdrawing the suit from the jurisdiction of a court of the United States.' Marshall v. Baltimore & O. R. Co. 16 How. 314; Covington Drawbridge Co. v. Shepherd, 20 How. 232; Ins. Co. v. Ritchie, 5 Wall. 542; Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 178; Railroad Co. v. Harris, 12 Wall. 82.

To the rule, thus established by numerous decisions, the court adheres. Upon this branch of the case it is therefore only necessary to say that if the individual members of a corporation, created by the laws of one of the United States, are, for the purposes of suit by or against it in the courts of the Union, conclusively presumed to be citizens of the state by whose laws that corporation is created and exists, it would seem to follow, logically, that the members of a corporation, created by the laws of a foreign state, should, for like purposes, be conclusively presumed to be citizens or subjects of such foreign state. Consequently, a corporation of a foreign state is, for purposes of jurisdiction in the courts of the United States, to be deemed, constructively, a citizen or subject of such state.

But it is suggested that the petition for the removal of the action into the circuit court of the United States is radically defective, in that it does not show that the National Steam-ship Company was a corporation of a foreign state at the commencement of the action; that the allegation upon that point refers only to the time when the removal was sought. If, in suits in which the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States depends upon the character of the parties, it is material, under the act of March, 3, 1875, to show what the citizenship of the parties was at the commencement of the action, it is sufficient to say that the averment in the original complaint that the company is a foreign corporation, supplemented by the averment in the petition for removal that it is a corporation created by and existing under the laws of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, covers the whole period from the commencement of the action to the application for removal. It is not always necessary that the citizenship of the parties be set out in the petition for removal. The requirements of the law are met if the citizenship of the parties to the controversy sought to be removed is shown, affirmatively, by the record of the case. Ry. Co. v. Ramsey, 22 Wall. 322; Robertson v. Cease, 97 U. S. 648.

The only remaining question which need be considered is whether the jurisdiction of the state court was, in any form, restored, after the company filed its petition and bond for removal. The defendant in error insists that it was. The petition was accompanied by a bond which, it is...

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    ...of jurisdiction in the courts of the Union, to be deemed constructively a citizen or subject of such state. National Steamship Co. v. Tugman, 106 U. S. 118, 1 S. Ct. 58, 27 L. Ed. 87; Petrocokino v. Stuart, Fed. Cas. No. 11,041; Purcell v. British Land & Mortgage Co. (C. C.) 42 F. 465. An a......
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    ...Brady v. J. B. McCrary Co., 244 F. 602; Kingston v. American Car & Foundry Co., 285 U.S. 560; 271 U.S. 99; 102 U.S. 135; 196 U.S. 239; 106 U.S. 118; 140 U.S. 213 U.S. 207; Sec. 29, U.S. Judicial Code; 4 Hughes Fed. Practice, page 7, sec. 2271, page 20, sec. 2274, and page 61, sec. 2302; Bys......
  • Boatmen's Bank of St. Louis v. Fritzlen
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  • Crisp v. Champion Fibre Co
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    ...the suit; or in Railroad Co. v. Koontz, 104 U. S. 5, 14 , its rightful jurisdiction comes to 'an end';"or, in Steamship Co. v. Tugman, 106 U. S. 118, 122 [1 S. Ct. 58, 27 L. Ed. 87], 'upon the filing, therefore, of the petition and the bond—the suit being removable under the statute—the......
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  • Recent Developments In Diversity Jurisdiction For LLCs And Other Unincorporated Forms
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    • Mondaq United States
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    ...citizenship of those who use the corporate name and exercise the facilities conferred by it, ... ."); see also Steamship Company v. Tugman, 106 US 118, 120-21 45 See, e.g., Chapman v. Barney, SCt, 129 US 677, 9 SCt 426, 32 L.Ed. 800 (1889). 46 See, e.g., Alphonse v. Arch Bay Holdings, L.L.C......

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