Wilkinson v. State of Nebraska Society For Savings of the City of Cleveland

• Decision Date: 14 November 1887
• Citation: 123 U.S. 286,8 S.Ct. 120,3 L.Ed. 152
• Parties: WILKINSON, Treasurer, etc., and others v. STATE OF NEBRASKA ex rel. SOCIETY FOR SAVINGS OF THE CITY OF CLEVELAND
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

8 S.Ct. 120

123 U.S. 286

3 L.Ed. 152

WILKINSON, Treasurer, etc., and others v. STATE OF NEBRASKA ex rel.

SOCIETY FOR SAVINGS OF THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.

November 14, 1887.

J. M. Woolworth, for the motion.

A. J. Poppleton and J. M. Thurston, in opposition.

WAITE, C. J.

This is a writ of error for the review of an order of the circuit court remanding a suit which had been removed from the supreme court of the state of Nebraska. The suit was for a mandamus to compel Wilkinson, the treasurer of Dakota county, to apply certain moneys in his hands, collected for that purpose, to the payment of past-due coupons detached from bonds issued by the county. It was begun February 14, 1887. The defendants answered March 1, 1887, denying the validity of the bonds, and at the same time they presented their petition for the removal of the suit to the circuit court of the United States for the district of Nebraska, on the ground that the relator was a citizen of Ohio, and they were citizens of Nebraska. The state court directed the removal April 6, 1887, and a copy of the record was entered in the circuit court on the nineteenth of the same month. On the twenty-seventh of May the relator moved to remand the suit, 'on the ground that the circuit court was without jurisdiction to review the said cause, and to hear and determine the same.' This motion was granted the same day, and thereupon the present writ of error was sued out by the defendants, which the relator now moves to dismiss for want of jurisdiction.

We have already decided at the present term, in Morey v. Lockhart, 123 U. S. ——, ante, 65, that since the act of March 3, 1887, (chapter 373; 24 St. 552,) no appeal or writ of error lies to this court under the last paragraph of section 5 of the act of March 3, 1875, from an order of the circuit court remanding a suit which had been removed from a state court. That, however, was a case in which the suit was begun, and the removal had, after the act of 1887 went into effect. Here the suit was begun, and a petition for removal filed, in the state court before the act, and this, it is contended, saves to these parties their right to a writ of error under the act of 1875, because of a proviso in section 6 of that of 1887, in these words: 'Provided, that this act shall not affect the jurisdiction over or disposition of any suit removed from the court of any state, or suit commenced in any court of the United States, before the passage hereof, except as otherwise...