Rodgers v. Gaines Bros. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 May 1927
• Docket Number: No. 19833.,19833.
• Citation: 295 S.W. 492
• Parties: RODGERS v. CAINES BROS. CO. et al.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

295 S.W. 492

RODGERS v. CAINES BROS. CO. et al.

No. 19833.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

May 3, 1927.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Franklin County; R. A. Breuer, Judge.

Action for personal injuries brought by Wesley Rodgers against the Gaines Bros. Company and another. From a judgment for plaintiff, the named defendant appeals. Affirmed.

John T. Sluggett, Jr., of St. Louis, and F. W. Jenny, of Union, for appellant.

W. L. Cole, of Union, and James Booth and Virginia Booth, both of Pacific, for respondent.

BENNICK, C.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries, sustained by plaintiff on May 19, 1926, while in the employ of Gaines Bros. Company. The verdict of the jury was in favor of plaintiff, and against Gaines Bros. Company, in the sum of $5,000, and, from the judgment rendered thereon, the latter has appealed.

Plaintiff's petition was filed on June 17, 1926, and on the same day summons was issued for appellant and for one John Blair, also named a party defendant, returnable to the August, 1926, term of court. Summons was duly served upon appellant, but no service was had upon Blair.

On August 2, 1926, being the first day of the August term of court, appellant filed a duly verified petition for removal of the cause to the District Court of the United States within and for the Eastern Division of the Eastern Judicial District of Missouri, together with a bond in the sum of $500, with good and sufficient surety. The petition was in approved form, and for ground for removal set up diversity of citizenship, in that plaintiff was a citizen of the state of Missouri, and appellant a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the state of Oklahoma and a citizen of said state. There was a further allega-Cory that the defendant Blair was not a resident or citizen of Franklin county, within the state of Missouri; that process had not been served upon him; that he had not entered his appearance in the cause; and that the court had no jurisdiction over him.

Thereafter, and on the same day, plaintiff filed an amended petition again designating Blair as a party defendant. On August 5th, appellant's petition for removal was denied by the court, to which ruling exception was taken and duly preserved by appellant in a term bill of exceptions. On August 17th, appellant filed its answer, and on the same day the cause was tried, resulting in a verdict and judgment, as we have indicated above. During the taking of defendant's evidence, plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the case as to defendant Blair.

Plaintiff's petition alleged that plaintiff was engaged in the work of constructing a state highway; that it was the duty of plaintiff to drive a dump wagon, under the directions of defendant's foreman, Blair, and that he was injured by reason of the negligence of defendants, in the following particulars (which were submitted to the jury): First, in ordering and directing plaintiff to drive and dump said wagon at a place known by defendants to be dangerous and unsafe; and, second, in furnishing a dump wagon to plaintiff which was not provided with brakes, and was dangerous and unsafe.

The answer of appellant was a general denial, coupled with pleas of contributory negligence and assumption of risk.

While the reply is not set out in the abstract of the record, it appears that the case was tried as though the new matter in the answer was at issue.

The evidence disclosed that the dump wagon which had been furnished plaintiff by appellant was drawn by three mules. Upon the occasion in question, after the wagon had been loaded by a steam shovel, plaintiff drove along the dump, which was 10 or 12 feet high, to a point where his foreman, Blair, directed that he should drive down the slope and dump his load. It appears that the slope was covered with large rocks, and, in driving down the same, the wagon (which was not equipped with a brake) pushed down upon the mules, causing them to lunge forward. Plaintiff was thrown from the wagon thereby, and one of the wheels ran over his head, entirely severing his right ear,' and bruising his head, right arm, and right leg. The evidence disclosed that, by reason of the accident, his hearing was impaired, and he was caused to suffer from headaches and sleeplessness.

The first and principal contention of appellant is that the court erred in denying its petition for removal after such petition, together with bond and proof of service of notice of its intention to file such petition and bond, had actually been filed and presented to the court below. In the consideration of this question we may concede, as we have indicated elsewhere, that appellant's petition and bond were in proper form, and that same were duly filed by it at the time when it was required by the statutes and rules of court to appear and plead to plaintiff's petition. The petition for removal counted solely upon diversity of citizenship between plaintiff and appellant as the ground for removal, and the purport of same was wholly to disregard the resident, Blair, as a defendant in the case, inasmuch as no service had been had upon him.

The removal statute provides that any suits of a civil nature, at law or in equity, of which the District Courts of the United States have jurisdiction, and which are brought in any state court, may be removed into the District Courts of the United States for the proper district by the defendant or defendants therein, being nonresidents of that state. Judicial Code U. S. § 28 (U. S Comp. St. 1916, § 1010). In the construction of this statute, it has been held that an action cannot be removed from a state to the federal court on the ground of diversity of citizenship, where there is no separable controversy, unless all the defendants join in the petition for removal, and are all nonresidents of the state in whose court the action was originally brought. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Martin, 178 U. S. 245, 20 S. Ct. 854, 4' L. Ed. 1055; Cochran v. Montgomery County, 199 U. S. 260, 270, 26 S. Ct. 58, 50 L. Ed. 182, 4 Annt. Cas. 451; Fletcher v. Hamlet, 116 U. S. 408, 410, 6 S. Ct. 426, 29 L. Ed. 679; Highway Construction Co. v. McClelland (C. C. A.) 14 F.(2d) 406; McCaffrey v. Wilson & Co. (D. C.) 10 F.(2d) 368; Blackburn v. Blackburn (C. C.) 142 F. 901; Casey v. Baker (D. C.) 212 F. 247; McNaul v. West Indian Securities Corporation (C. C.) 178 F. 308.

It is apparent, therefore, that the determination of appellant's right to have removed this cause to the federal court depends in the final analysis upon the question of whether Blair was a party to the action at the time the petition for removal was filed, though concededly he had not been served with process. If he was not a party, upon the filing of appellant's petition in the circuit court, the jurisdiction of such court ceased, and that of the federal court immediately attached, regardless of the action of the state court, and all further proceedings below were coram non judice. However, if he was still a party, the case was clearly not removable, for the reason that he was a resident of Missouri, and...