St Paul Ry Co v. Lean

• Decision Date: 02 April 1883
• Parties: ST. PAUL & C. RY. CO. v. McLEAN
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

108 U.S. 212

2 S.Ct. 498

27 L.Ed. 703

ST. PAUL & C. RY. CO. v. McLEAN.

April 2, 1883.

This action was brought in the court of common pleas for the city and county of New York by Samuel McLean, a citizen of that state, against the St. Paul & Chicago Railway Company, a corporation of the state of Minnesota. After answer, the action was, upon the petition of the defendant, accompanied by a proper bond, removed for trial into the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of New York. The sole ground of removal was that the case presented a controversy between the citizens of the different states. The removal was had before the term at which the cause could have been first tried in the state court. The first day of the next session of the federal court, succeeding the removal was the seventh day of April, 1879. But the copy of the record from the state court was not filed in the federal court until April 10, 1879, on which day, upon motion of the attorney for the company, an ex parte order was made, stating the filing of such copy, the appearance of defendant, and that the action should proceed in that court as if originally commenced therein. Subsequently, April 14, 1879, the plaintiff, upon notice to defendant, moved the court to remand the cause for the failure of the defendant to file copy of the record and enter his appearance within the time prescribed by statute. This motion was resisted upon the ground, supported by affidavit, that it was by inadvertence that the record was not filed in the federal court in proper time, and that counsel did not discover that fact until April 10, 1879, when it was filed, and notice thereof, on the same day, given to plaintiff's attorney. This motion to remand was granted by an order entered May 24, 1879.

On the twenty-eighth of May, 1879, the company filed in the state court a second petition, accompanied by the required bond, for the removal of the action into the federal court upon the same grounds as those specified in its first petition. A copy of the record was promptly filed in the federal court, but the cause, upon motion of plaintiff, was again remanded by an order entered December 27, 1879.

The present writ of error brings before this court both of the orders of the circuit court remanding the cause to the state court.

C. W. Bangs and F. L. Stetson, for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 213-215 intentionally omitted] D. M. Porter, for defendant in error.

HARLAN, J.

In Removal Cases, 100 U. S. 474, the court had occasion to construe the act of March 3, 1875, determining the jurisdiction of circuit courts of the United States and regulating the removal of causes from state courts. The court there said, speaking by the chief justice:

'While the act of congress requires security that the transcript shall be filed on the first day, it nowhere appears that the circuit court is to be deprived of its jurisdiction, if by accident the party is delayed until a later day of the term. If the circuit court, for good cause shown, accepts the transfer after the day and during the term, its jurisdiction will, as a general rule, be complete and the removal properly effected.'

In reference to this language, it was said in Railroad Co. v. Koontz, 104 U. S. 16: 'This was as far as it was necessary to go in that case, and in entering, as we did then, on the construction of the act of 1875, it was deemed advisable to confine our decision to the facts we then had before us.' In the latter case,...