Park Square Automobile Station v. American Locomotive Co.

• Decision Date: 30 March 1915
• Citation: 222 F. 979
• Parties: PARK SQUARE AUTOMOBILE STATION v. AMERICAN LOCOMOTIVE CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

222 F. 979

PARK SQUARE AUTOMOBILE STATION v. AMERICAN LOCOMOTIVE CO.

United States District Court, N.D. New York.

March 30, 1915

Sawyer Hardy, Stone & Morrison, of Boston, Mass., and Albert Terrien, of Nashua, N.H., for plaintiff.

Daniel Naylon, Jr., of Schenectady, N.Y., Storey, Thorndike, Palmer & Dodge, of Boston, Mass., and Taggart, Burroughs, Wyman &amp McLane, of Manchester, N.H., for defendant.

RAY District Judge.

So far as the motion by defendant for late entry is concerned, the motion is granted, as I deem it in the interest of justice. The errors and mistakes sought to be corrected grew out of misapprehension and errors as to the true residence, etc., of the defendant. In fact, no serious opposition is made to the granting of the application.

The motion to remand presents a serious and more difficult question, arising from what appear to be conflicting provisions of the Judicial Code of the United States, more particularly those relating to the bringing of actions in the District Court of the United States and the removal of causes thereto from the state courts.

The jurisdiction of the District Courts of the United States over suits brought therein or removed thereto from the state courts is purely statutory. This jurisdiction is defined, and the Judicial Code prescribes what actions at law brought in the state courts may be removed to the District Courts of the United States. The Judicial Code referred to also prescribes a mode or method of procedure for such removal, or for removal in certain cases. An action at law, where the amount in controversy, exclusive of interest and costs, exceeds $3,000, and the parties thereto are residents of different states, may be brought in the United States District Court of the District in which either the plaintiff or the defendant resides. There are local causes of action and transitory causes of action, and an action of the latter class may be brought by a plaintiff in the District Court of the United States in any district where the defendant is found, provided the plaintiff resides there, or in the District Court of the district where the defendant resides; that is, the plaintiff may go from the state and district of his own residence into the district where the defendant resides in another state and there bring his action in the United States District Court, provided the required amount is in controversy. The question involved in this case relates to the District Court of the United States to which causes may or must be removed, if removed at all, and to the question whether a citizen of state A, by suing a citizen of state B in the state court of state C, may prevent removal, or, if not, compel removal to the United States District Court of state C, if removed.

The plaintiff, Park Square Automobile Station, a corporation of the state of Maine, commenced this action in the superior court for Hillsborough county, in the state of New Hampshire, against the American Locomotive Company, defendant, a corporation of the state of New York, where it has its principal offices and place of business, and within the four days within which by rule 10 of the said superior court the defendant was required to file a plea in abatement, if any, the defendant filed its petition to remove the cause from said superior court to the United States District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. The attorneys for the defendant then supposed that the defendant had its residence or principal place of business in said Southern district of the state of New York and acted on that assumption. The required bond was given and application was made to the said superior court on the required papers for an order removing the cause. The superior court aforesaid declined to grant the order or surrender jurisdiction. The defendant, it is said, had two remedies, one of which was to appeal from the superior court to the Supreme Court of the state for review of the order denying removal, and the other was to go to trial and raise the question on appeal from any judgment that might be rendered against it. The superior court of the state of New Hampshire declined to proceed with the cause until the question of removability should first be settled by the Supreme Court of the state. Later, the defendant's attorney having learned that the residence and principal office and place of business of the defendant was in the Northern district of New York, and not the Southern district, the defendant moved on petition to amend its former petition, so as to remove the said suit from the superior court of Hillsborough county, state of New Hampshire, to the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York, where in fact its residence and principal place of business are.

This petition the state court of New Hampshire allowed, in so far as it had the right so to do, so stating, as of the time when the original petition was filed, but at the same time declined to surrender jurisdiction of the case. The plaintiff thereupon moves to remand the cause to the superior court, assuming that it has been removed to the Northern district of New York, on the ground mainly that the suit could not be removed from the superior court of the state of New Hampshire to the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, even though that district in the state of New York was the home residence and principal place of business of the defendant corporation.

By chapter 2, Sec. 24, of the Judicial Code (Judiciary Act March 3, 1911, c. 231 (Comp. St. 1913, Sec. 991)), Congress has prescribed the original jurisdiction of the District Courts of the United States as including, first, (a) all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity, brought by the United States, or by any officer thereof authorized by law to sue; (b) all suits between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants from different states; and (c) all suits where the matter in controversy exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of $3,000 and (first) arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made under their authority; or (second) is between citizens of different states. The suit now in hand is an action at law and was brought by a corporation of the state of Maine against a corporation of the state of New York, and the sum or value in controversy is, exclusive of interest and costs, largely in excess of the sum or value of $3,000, and such suit is therefore one of which the United States District Court of some district had and has original jurisdiction. The suit must have been brought by the plaintiff against the defendant in the United States District Court of the residence of the defendant, or plaintiff, if brought in the United States court, as we shall see, and is a removable cause, as we shall see, having been brought in the superior court of one of the counties of the state of New Hampshire.

Where Suit Might Have Been Brought.

By section 51 of such Judicial Code of the United States it is provided:

' * * * And except as provided in the six succeeding sections, no civil suit shall be brought in any District Court against any person by any original process or proceeding in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant; but where the jurisdiction is founded only on the fact that the action is between citizens of different states, suit shall be brought only in the district of the residence of either the plaintiff or the defendant.'

By section 52 of said Judicial Code (Comp. St. 1913, Sec. 1034) it is provided that where a state contains more than one district, and there is but a single defendant (and such is this case), the suit, if not of a local nature (this case), must be brought in the district wherein such defendant resides.

It follows that, if this suit had been originally brought in the District Court of the United States, it must have been brought in the District Court of the Northern District of New York, as that is the district in which the defendant then resided and now resides, was incorporated, and had its principal office and place of business, and such suit is not of a local nature. The Northern district of New York would have been 'the proper district' in which to bring the action. Whether or not that is 'the proper district' to which removal from the state court is to be made, or may be made, is the question.

To What District Removable.

Chapter 3, Secs. 28 to 39, inclusive, of the said Judicial Code (Comp. St. 1913, Secs. 1010-1021), deals with the removal of causes from the state courts to the District Courts of the United States, and certain of these sections prescribe what causes may be removed, and others deal with procedure in case removal is sought.

'Any suit of a civil nature, at law or in equity, arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority of which the District Courts of the United States are given original jurisdiction by this title, which may now be pending or which may hereafter be brought, in any state court, may be removed by the defendant or defendants therein to the District Court of the United States for the proper district. Any other suit of a civil nature, at law or in equity, of which the District Courts of the United States are given jurisdiction by this title, and which are now pending or which may hereafter be brought, in any state court, may be removed into the District Court of the United States for the proper district by the defendant or defendants therein, being nonresidents of that state. And when in any suit mentioned in this section there shall be a controversy which...