New York Construction Co. v. Simon

• Decision Date: 10 July 1891
• Docket Number: 996.
• Citation: 53 F. 1
• Parties: NEW YORK CONSTRUCTION CO. v. SIMON et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

53 F. 1

NEW YORK CONSTRUCTION CO. v. SIMON et al.

No. 996.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. Ohio, Western Division.

July 10, 1891

Wetmore & Jenner, Walter B. Richie, and Cable & Parmenter, for complainant.

Simpson Thacher & Barnum and Wheeler & Brice, for respondents.

JACKSON Circuit Judge.

This cause is before the court on several motions. The plaintiff moves to remand the suit to the court of common pleas of Allen county, Ohio, from whence it was removed by defendant the Chase National Bank of New York to this court; the Chase National Bank moves to quash the summons issued for it by said court of common pleas, and to set aside the service and the return of the officer on said summons; and the First National Bank of Lima, Ohio, moves to dissolve the injunction heretofore granted and issued against it by said court of common pleas of Allen county.

It appears from the record that the plaintiff is a corporation organized under the laws of Illinois, and a citizen of said state. That on July 8, 1890, its secretary, at Lima, Ohio. That said B. C. Faurot indorsed said note in blank. That defendant Kauffman Simon, who had business relations with plaintiff, obtained possession of said note, fraudulently and by false representations, as plaintiff alleges, and thereafter passed or transferred the same to the Chase National Bank of New York, and said last-named bank, having placed the following restrictive indorsement on the paper 'Pay First National National Bank for collection. While the note was thus held by the Lima National Bank as the agent of the Chase National Bank, the plaintiff filed its petition in the court of common pleas of Allen county, Ohio, against said Simon, the Chase National Bank, and the First National Bank of Lima, for the purpose of having the said note delivered up and canceled for the alleged frauds of Simon in procuring the same, and because it was executed without authority, was never delivered by the maker, and because neither of the defendants paid or parted with any consideration therefor. It sought to have the note impounded in the hands of the First National Bank of Lima pending the litigation, and a temporary injunction was granted enjoining and restraining said Lima National Bank 'from parting with the possession of said instrument, (note,) or delivering the possession thereof to the other defendants herein, or either of them,' and requiring said bank to retain the custody of the paper until the final hearing of the cause, so that the same might be subject to the order of the court. The defendant Simon and the Chase National Bank being both citizens of New York, and the original summons issued for them to the sheriff of Allen county having been returned 'Not found,' another summons, with certified copies of petition and orders of said court, were issued to the sheriff of New York county, N.Y., which was served upon said defendants by said sheriff in the city of New York, and returned accordingly, with proper certificates as to official character, etc. Thereafter the said Chase National Bank filed its petition for the removal of the suit from said state court to this court, tendering with its petition a bond, with sureties as required by law, which was approved by said state court, which directed the case to be removed to this court. Said petition contains all the requisite averments if the petitioner was entitled to the removal on its sole application; and it further shows that petitioner purchased said note (presumably before maturity) for a valuable consideration, and without notice of the alleged frauds on Simon's part in procuring the same, etc.

The claim of the Chase National Bank is that it is the holder of the note for value and without notice of the alleged fraudulent acts and representations of Simon in obtaining its execution and delivery to him. The plaintiff rests its motion to remand the cause on three grounds, viz.: First, because all the defendants did not join in the application for removal from the state court to this court; second, because the petition for removal is not sufficient in law to entitle the defendant to the removal prayed for, and was otherwise defective; and, third, because the bond on which the removal was procured was insufficient and defective, it not appearing that the seal of the corporation was attached thereto by authority of said defendant, nor that the bond was properly acknowledged, and because it did not appear that the sureties were sufficient, nor that they had properly acknowledged the execution of the bond.

In the opinion of the court this third ground for remanding the case is without merit. The bond is regular in all respects. There is nothing to show any insufficiency or defect in it, or want of sufficiency in the sureties thereon. It was properly executed and acknowledged both by the obligor and its sureties, and was formally approved and accepted by the state court to which it was tendered. This court, if it could rightfully review the action of the state court in approving and accepting the bond tendered, is unable to discover from the record any error in the proceeding.

The first and second grounds for remanding may be considered together. They present the question whether the Chase National Bank alone, without the other defendants joining in the application, was entitled to remove the suit. The right of said bank to effect a removal of the cause on its sole application depends, or must be rested, upon the fact that the suit presents a separable controversy between itself and the plaintiff. By the third

'And when, in any suit mentioned in this section, there shall be a controversy which is wholly between citizens of different states, and which can be fully determined as between them then either one or more of the defendants actually interested in such controversy may remove said suit into the circuit court of the United States for the proper district.' This provision is the same as that embodied in the second clause of the second section of the act of 1875, with the single exception that the right of removal is limited and restricted to the defendant or defendants in the suit, and should therefore receive the same construction and application, so far as the removing defendant is concerned, as the courts had previously given to said language under the act of 1875.

It is settled by the decisions in cases of Barney v Latham, 103 U.S. 205, and Bacon v. Rives, 106 U.S. 99, 1 S.Ct. 3, following the rule announced in Wood v. Davis, 18 How. 467, under the judiciary act of 1789, that the presence of a formal defendant against whom no relief is sought will not defeat the right of the real party defendant to a removal of the suit. It is very clear that the First National Bank of Lima was not an indispensable party to the controversy between the plaintiff and either or both of the other defendants. Said bank occupied the position of a mere stakeholder. It was a matter of no concern or personal interest to it whether ...