St. Louis Cotton Compress Co. v. American Cotton Co.

• Decision Date: 07 September 1903
• Docket Number: 1,913.
• Citation: 125 F. 196
• Parties: ST. LOUIS COTTON COMPRESS CO. v. AMERICAN COTTON CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

125 F. 196

ST. LOUIS COTTON COMPRESS CO. v. AMERICAN COTTON CO.

No. 1,913.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

September 7, 1903

Syllabus by the Court.

The act creating the Circuit Courts of Appeals (Act March 3, 1891, c 517, 26 Stat. 826 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 488)) gives to the Supreme Court jurisdiction to directly review a judgment of a Circuit Court which sustains an objection to its jurisdiction and dismisses the suit on that ground, and the Circuit Courts of Appeals have no jurisdiction to review such a judgment.

Such a judgment, founded on the inadequate service of a summons in a suit pending in a state court before the case was removed to the United States Circuit Court is directly reviewable by the Supreme Court, and the Circuit Court of Appeals has no jurisdiction to review it.

The Supreme Court has jurisdiction under the act creating the Circuit Courts of Appeals to directly review questions involving the jurisdiction of the Circuit or District Courts which are common to all courts (such as the service of a summons) to the same extent and in the same manner as it has jurisdiction to review questions peculiar to the federal courts as such (such as diversity of citizenship and amount in controversy).

The Supreme Court has jurisdiction to directly review the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court to the same extent and in the same manner in cases in which the jurisdiction of that court as a federal court is based solely on diversity of citizenship that it has in cases in which such jurisdiction if founded on other grounds.

F. N Judson and Joseph W. Lewis, for plaintiff in error.

Allen C. Orrick (G. A. Finkelnburn, Charles Nagel, and Daniel N Kirby, on the brief), for defendant in error.

Before SANBORN and VAN DEVANTER, Circuit Judges, and SHIRAS District judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

This writ of error challenges a judgment of the Circuit Court which quashed the return of the service of a summons upon the defendant, the American Cotton Company, and dismissed the action against it on the ground that the Circuit Court had acquired no jurisdiction of the defendant. The plaintiff, the St. Louis Cotton Compress Company, a corporation of the state of Missouri, filed a petition in the circuit court of the city of St. Louis in the state of Missouri to recover $32,379.60 from the defendant below, the American Cotton Company, a corporation of the state of New Jersey. A summons was issued, which was served on H. G. Krake, an employe and agent of the defendant. The case was removed to the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on the ground of diverse citizenship. The defendant appeared specially in that court, and moved to set aside the service of the summons and to dismiss the action for want of jurisdiction of the defendant, because at the time of the service it had no office and was transacting no business in the state of Missouri, and had no officer, agent, or employe in that state authorized to represent it or to transact any business for it there. This motion prevailed, and it is the judgment which granted it and dismissed the action that this writ of error was sued out to reverse.

The plaintiff is met at the threshold of the investigation in this court by a motion to dismiss its writ of error upon the ground that the Circuit Court of Appeals has no jurisdiction to hear or determine the question which it presents. That question is, did the United States Circuit Court acquire jurisdiction of the defendant by virtue of the service of the summons on Krake before this case was removed from the state court?

Act March 3, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 488), which created the Circuit Courts of Appeals, provides in section 5 (26 Stat. 827 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 549)) that 'appeals or writs of error may be taken from * * * the existing Circuit Courts directly to the Supreme Court * * * in any case in which the jurisdiction of the court is in issue,' and in section 6 (26 Stat. 828 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 549)) that the Circuit Courts of Appeals 'shall exercise appellate jurisdiction to review by appeal or writ of error final decision in the * * * existing Circuit Courts in all cases other than those provided for in the preceding section of this act, unless otherwise provided by law. ' If, therefore, a writ of error could have been taken from the Supreme Court directly to the Circuit Court to review the question here presented under section 5 in this suit, this is not one of the other cases of which this court is given jurisdiction by section 6. Dudley v. Board of Commissioners of Lake Co., 103 F. 209, 43 C.C.A. 184. The rules for the distribution between the Supreme Court and the Circuit Courts of Appeals of the cases involving the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court were formulated by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Jahn, 155 U.S.109, 115, 15 Sup.Ct. 39, 39 L.Ed. 87, and were adopted by this court in Evans-Snider-Buel Co. v. McCaskill, 101 F. 658, 660, 41 C.C.A. 577, 579. The first of these rules is that the act creating the Circuit Courts of Appeals does not give the Circuit Courts of Appeals jurisdiction to review a judgment of a Circuit Court which sustains an objection to its jurisdiction and dismisses the action on that ground, but the plaintiff should have the question of jurisdiction certified, and take his writ of error or appeal directly to the Supreme Court. Counsel for the plaintiff insist that the case in hand does not fall within this rule. In support of this contention they persuasively argue (1) that it is only when the dismissal in the Circuit Court involves the jurisdiction of that court as a federal court that the Supreme Court has exclusive jurisdiction to review it, and (2) that the Circuit Courts of Appeals have jurisdiction to review a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction in every case in which the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court rests solely on diverse citizenship; and they truly say that this case does not involve the jurisdiction of the United States Circuit Court as distinguished from the jurisdiction of any other court, and that its jurisdiction of the controversy as a federal court is founded solely on diverse citizenship. The concession must be made that, if either of their premises is sound, their conclusion logically follows.

In support of their first proposition counsel chiefly rely upon the opinions of the Supreme Court in Smith v. McKay, 161 U.S. 355, 16 Sup.Ct. 490, 40 L.Ed. 731; Blythe v Hinckley, 173 U.S. 501, 19 Sup.Ct. 497, 43 L.Ed. 783; Mexican Central Ry. Co. v. Eckman, 187 U.S. 429, 433, 23 Sup.Ct. 211, 47 L.Ed. 245; and Huntington v. Laidley, 176 U.S. 668, 679, 20 Sup.Ct. 526, 44 L.Ed. 630. Smith v. McKay was a suit in equity. The defendant had moved to dismiss it on the pleadings upon the ground that the complainant had an adequate remedy at law. The court denied this motion, and after a final decree an appeal was taken directly to the Supreme Court, and the question whether or not the complainant had an adequate remedy at law was certified to that court as a jurisdictional question under section 5 of the act of March 3, 1891. The Supreme Court decided that it was not such a question, but that it presented an issue on the merits arising in the progress of the cause, which the Circuit Court had plenary jurisdiction to hear and determine. In Blythe v. Hinckley, 173 U.S. 501, 504, 506, 507, 19 Sup.Ct. 497, 43 L.Ed. 783, a suit in equity was dismissed by the Circuit Court on the grounds (a) that the questions presented by the complainants had been conclusively determined by the state courts, and (b) that the complainants had an adequate remedy at law. An appeal from the decree was taken directly to the Supreme Court, and that appeal was dismissed for the reason that the decision of the Circuit Court was not that it was without jurisdiction of the subject-matter or of the parties to the suit, but was that the facts disclosed by the complainants were insufficient to constitute a cause of action in equity. In Mexican Central Ry. Co. v. Eckman, 187 U.S. 429, 432, 23 Sup.Ct. 211, 47 L.Ed. 245, a guardian who was a resident and citizen of the state of Texas, and whose ward was a resident and citizen of the state of Illinois, brought an action in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Texas against the Mexican Central Railway Company, a corporation of the state of Massachusetts, and recovered a judgment. A writ of error was sued out of the Supreme Court to reverse it, and the Circuit Court certified that the jurisdictional question whether the citizenship of the guardian or that of the ward should control had arisen in the case. The Supreme Court took jurisdiction, and decided this question. In Huntington v. Laidley, 176 U.S. 668, 679, 20 Sup.Ct. 526, 44 L.Ed. 630, the Circuit Court dismissed a bill in equity on the ground that it was without jurisdiction because a question arose in the case whether or not certain proceedings in the state court rendered the rights of the plaintiff res adjudicata, but it did not hear or decide that question. The Supreme Court reversed the decree on a direct appeal, and held that the question whether or not the proceedings of the state courts had conclusively determined the rights of the plaintiff was not a jurisdictional question, and that it was the duty of the Circuit Court to hear and determine it upon its merits. There are expressions in some of the opinions in these cases to the effect that the jurisdiction referred to in section 5 of the act creating the Circuit Courts of Appeals is the 'jurisdiction of the Circuit and District Courts as such' (Mexican Central Ry. Co. v. Eckman, 187 U.S. 432, 23 Sup.Ct. 212, 47 L.Ed. 245), and that 'appeals or writs of error may be taken...