Seaboard Rice Milling Co v. Chicago Ry Co

• Decision Date: 01 March 1926
• Docket Number: No. 311,311
• Citation: 70 L.Ed. 633,46 S.Ct. 247,270 U.S. 363
• Parties: SEABOARD RICE MILLING CO. v. CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

270 U.S. 363

46 S.Ct. 247

70 L.Ed. 633

SEABOARD RICE MILLING CO.

v CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO.

No. 311.

Submitted on Motion to Affirm Jan. 25, 1926.

Decided March 1, 1926.

Messrs. Thomas P. Littlepage, of Washington, D. C., Lon O. Hocker and Frank H. Sullivan, both of St. Louis, Mo., W. F. Dickinson, of Chicago, Ill., Luther Burns, of Topeka, Kan., and M. L. Bell, of Chicago, Ill., for the motion.

Mr. Alfred G. Hagerty, of St. Paul, Minn., opposed.

Mr. Justice SANFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an action at law brought by the Milling Company against the Railway Company, in the District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri, to recover the sum of $3,035.73 for damages alleged to have been sustained through the negligence of the Railway Company, the initial carrier, and its connecting carriers, in the interstate transportation of rice shipped from Arkansas to New York. The Railway Company, appearing specially, filed a plea to the jurisdiction, on the ground that neither it nor the Milling Company was a resident or inhabitant of the district. This plea was sustained, without opinion, and the suit was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. This direct writ of error was allowed and the jurisdictional question certified, in February, 1925, under § 238 of the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1215).

The Railway Company has interposed a motion to affirm the judgment, upon the ground that the question upon which the decision depends is so unsubstantial as not to need further argument. Hodges v. Snyder, 43 S. Ct. 435, 261 U. S. 600, 601, 67 L. Ed. 819. This motion must be granted.

The declaration and the testimony heard upon the plea show that the Milling Company is a corporation organized under the laws or Texas; and that the Railway Company is a corporation organized under the laws of Illinois and Iowa, having its principal office in Chicago, but maintaining a branch office and operating a branch line within the eastern district of Missouri.

Section 51 of the Judicial Code (Comp St. § 1033) which deals with the venue of suits originally begun in the District Courts-reenacting in part a similar provision in the Judiciary Act of 1888¹-provides, subject to certain exceptions not material here, that 'no civil suit shall be brought in any district court against any person by any original process of 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.' That is to say, the suit must be brought within the district of which the defendant is an inhabitant, unless the general federal jurisdiction is founded upon diversity of citizenship alone, in which case it must be brought either in that district or in the district in which the plaintiff resides.

While this provision does not limit the general jurisdiction of the District Courts, it confers a personal privilege on the defendant, which he may assert, or may waive, at his election, if sued in some other district. Lee v. Chesapeake Railway, 43 S. Ct. 230, 260 U. S. 653, 655, 67 L. Ed. 443; and cases cited. If this privilege is seasonably asserted, the suit must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction over the person of the defendant. Macon Grocery Co. v. Atlantic Coast Line, 30 S. Ct. 184, 215 U. S. 501, 510, 54 L. Ed. 300; and cases cited.

It is immaterial whether the general federal jurisdiction in the present suit is founded upon diversity of citizenship alone, or whether the suit is also one arising under the laws of the United States, since neither the Milling Company nor the Railway Company is a resident of the Eastern District of Missouri; a corporation...