Southern Realty Investment Company v. Nancy Walker
| Decision Date | 04 January 1909 |
| Docket Number | No. 43,43 |
| Citation | 211 U.S. 603,29 S.Ct. 211,53 L.Ed. 346 |
| Parties | SOUTHERN REALTY INVESTMENT COMPANY, Piff. in Err., v. NANCY WALKER |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Alex. C. King and King, Spalding, & Little for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Olin J. Wimberly for defendant in error.
This action of ejectment was brought in the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of Georgia to recover a tract of land in that state. The plaintiff, the Southern Realty Investment Company, sued as a corporation of South Dakota, while the defendant is a citizen of Georgia.
The articles of incorporation filed by the company in South Dakota stated that the purpose for which the corporation was formed was to buy, sell, or lease real estate; open up farm lands and operate farms;carry on any business which may be deemed advantageous in connection with farming operations; borrow and lend money on such security as may be deemed advisable; make and furnish abstracts of title to lands; guarantee titles of lands; buy, sell, or discount notes, accounts, mortgages, bonds, judgments, executions, and commercial paper of any kind; issue bonds and secure the same by mortgage or conveyance of property, real or personal, and sell, pledge, or hypothecate such bonds; derive compensation and profit from such transactions; and generally to do any and everything needful to the carrying on of such business transactions.
The case was tried on a plea to the jurisdiction of the circuit court of the United States.
In that plea it was averred that although the petition alleged diversity of citizenship, the suit was not, in fact, one of that character, but one in which the parties have been improperly made for the purpose only of creating a case of which the circuit court of the United States could take cognizance; that the Southern Realty Investment Company was incorporated and organized, under the laws of South Dakota, at the instance of two named Georgia lawyers, in order that it might, under their direction, prosecute suits in the United States court that did not really and substantially involve disputes or controversies within its jurisdiction, but controversies really and substantially between citizens of Georgia; that the only business the company has is to prosecute suits in the United States courts in its name, for those attorneys and other citizens of Georgia, to recover lands and mesne profits, of which suits those corts cannot properly take cognizance; and that the present suit against citizens of Georgia has been brought, in the name of the South Dakota corporation, for the use and benefit of certain other citizens of Georgia (the real and substantial plaintiffs in interest), for the purpose of conferring an apparent jurisdiction on the circuit court of the United States. The defendant's prayer was that the court should take no further cognizance of the action, but should dismiss it as one not really and substantially involving a dispute or controversy properly within the jurisdiction of the court, and one in which the parties to the suit had been improperly and collusively made for the purpose of creating a case cognizable in said court.
The plea to the jurisdiction was based on the act of Congress of March 3d, 1875, chap. 137, determining the jurisdiction of the circuit court of the United States, and regulating the removal of causes from state courts. By that act (§5) it was provided, among other things, that if, at any time after a suit is commenced in a circuit court of the United States, it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court 'that such suit does not really and substantially involve a dispute or controversy properly within the jurisdiction of said circuit court, or that the parties to said suit have been improperly or collusively made or joined, either as plaintiffs or defendants, for the purpose of creating a case cognizable or removable under this act, the said circuit court shall proceed no further therein, but shall dismiss the suit or remand it to the court from which it was removed, as justice may require,' etc....
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