Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/111/379/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:20:54+00:00

Document:
The necessary citizenship must appear in she record in order to give jurisdiction to a court of the United States.
When a cause is removed from a state court the difference of citizenship on which the right of removal depends must have existed at the time when the suit was begun, as well as at the time of removal.
It is an inflexible rule that the judicial power of the United States must not be exerted in a case to which it does not extend, even if both parties desire to have it exerted. The language of Mr. Justice Curtis in Dred Scott Case, 19 How. 566, cited and adopted.
Under the Act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 470, costs may be awarded in a court of the United States against a party wrongfully removing a cause from a state court when the cause is remanded for want of jurisdiction.
A judgment of this Court remanding to a circuit court a cause wrongfully removed into it, with directions to remand it to the state court, is an exercise of jurisdiction. In such case, costs will be awarded against the party wrongfully removing the cause when justice and right require.
There was a voluminous record in this case, with a long assignment of errors, and an elaborate brief on behalf of the plaintiffs in error. The court gave no opinion on the questions discussed, but dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction.
alleged breaches of a contract for the construction of the railroad of the defendants below. It was commenced June 10, 1874.
as partners, if it exists at all, upon the death of the said Stephen C. Rose the cause of action survived to the other partners."
The petition, being accompanied with a satisfactory bond, was allowed, and an order made for the removal of the cause.
The plaintiffs below afterwards, on December 13, 1879, moved to remand the cause on the ground, among others, that the circuit court had no jurisdiction, because the "real and substantial controversy in the cause is between real and substantial parties who are citizens of the same state and not of different states." But the motion was denied.
Subsequently a trial took place upon the merits, which resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, the defendants in error, for $238,116.18 against the defendants jointly, and the further sum of $116,468.32 against one of them.
Many exceptions to the rulings of the court during the trial were taken, and are embodied in a bill of exceptions, on which errors have been assigned, and the writ of error is prosecuted by the defendants below to reverse this judgment.
An examination of the record, however, discloses that the circuit court had no jurisdiction to try the action, and as for this reason we are constrained to reverse the judgment, we have not deemed it within our province to consider any other questions involved in it.
which the right of removal depends must have existed at the time when the suit was begun, as well as at the time of the removal, and according to the uniform decisions of this Court, the jurisdiction of the circuit court fails unless the necessary citizenship affirmatively appears in the pleadings or elsewhere in the record. Grace v. American Central Insurance Company, 109 U. S. 278, 109 U. S. 283; Robertson v. Cease, 97 U. S. 646. It was error, therefore, in the circuit court to assume jurisdiction in the case, and not to remand it, on the motion of the plaintiffs below.
It is true that the plaintiffs below, against whose objection the error was committed, do not complain of being prejudiced by it, and it seems to be an anomaly and a hardship that the party at whose instance it was committed should be permitted to derive an advantage from it; but the rule, springing from the nature and limits of the judicial power of the United States, is inflexible and without exception which requires this Court, of its own motion, to deny its own jurisdiction, and, in the exercise of its appellate power, that of all other courts of the United States, in all cases where such jurisdiction does not affirmatively appear in the record on which, in the exercise of that power, it is called to act. On every writ of error or appeal the first and fundamental question is that of jurisdiction, first, of this Court, and then of the court from which the record comes. This question the Court is bound to ask and answer for itself, even when not otherwise suggested, and without respect to the relation of the parties to it. This rule was adopted in Capron v. Van Noorden, 2 Cranch 126, decided in 1804, where a judgment was reversed on the application of the party against whom it had been rendered in the circuit court, for want of the allegation of his own citizenship, which he ought to have made to establish the jurisdiction which he had invoked. This case was cited with approval by Chief Justice Marshall in Brown v. Keene, 8 Pet. 112.
"In cases of which the circuit courts may take cognizance only by reason of the citizenship of the parties, this Court, as its decisions indicate, has, except under special circumstance, declined to express any opinion upon the merits, on appeal or writ of error, where the record does not affirmatively show jurisdiction in the court below; this because the courts of the Union, being courts of limited jurisdiction, the presumption is, in every stage of the cause, that it is without their jurisdiction unless the contrary appears from the record."
The reason of the rule, and the necessity of its application, are stronger and more obvious when, as in the present case, the failure of the jurisdiction of the circuit court arises not merely because the record omits the averments necessary to its existence, but because it recites facts which contradict it.
citizenship had not shown jurisdiction. But it is not necessary to determine whether the defendant can be allowed to assign want of jurisdiction as an error in a judgment in his own favor. The true question is not what either of the parties may be allowed to do, but whether this Court will affirm or reverse a judgment of the circuit court on the merits, when it appears on the record, by a plea to the jurisdiction, that it is a case to which the judicial power of the United States does not extend. The course of the court is, when no motion is made by either party, on its own motion, to reverse such a judgment for want of jurisdiction, not only in cases where it is shown, negatively, by a plea to the jurisdiction, that jurisdiction does not exist, but even when it does not appear affirmatively that it does exist. Peugeot v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 16 How. 104. It acts upon the principle that the judicial power of the United States must not be exerted in a case to which it does not extend, even if both parties desire to have it exerted. Cutler v. Rae, 7 How. 729. I consider, therefore, that when there was a plea to the jurisdiction of the circuit court in a case brought here by a writ of error, the first duty of this Court is, sua sponte, if not moved to it by either party, to examine the sufficiency of that plea, and thus to take care that neither the circuit court nor this Court shall use the judicial power of the United States in a case to which the Constitution and laws of the United States have not extended that power."
"Usually where a court has no jurisdictions of a case, the correct practice is to dismiss the suit, but a different rule necessarily prevails in an appellate court in cases where the subordinate court was without jurisdiction and has given judgment or decree for the plaintiff, or improperly decreed affirmative relief to a claimant. In such a case, the judgment or decree in the court below must be reversed, else the party which prevailed there would have the benefit of such judgment or decree, though rendered by a court which had no authority to hear and determine the matter in controversy."
There, it will be observed, the plaintiffs in error were seeking to reverse on the merits an adverse decree, vesting title in the opposing party, in a proceeding instituted by themselves. The court reversed that decree to their advantage, for want of the jurisdiction in the court below, which they had invoked and set in motion.
An analogous principle was acted on in Barney v. Baltimore, 6 Wall. 280, where a decree of the circuit court, dismissing a bill on the merits, was reversed because that court had no jurisdiction, and a decree of dismissal without prejudice directed, and in Thompson v. Railroad Companies, 6 Wall.
73 U. S. 134, where the question was one purely of procedure, whether the remedy was at law or in equity, although, in that class of cases, where the jurisdiction relates to the subject matter and is administered by the same court, but in another form of proceeding, it would seem more reasonable that the objection might be waived by the conduct of the parties. See also Hurt v. Hollingsworth, 100 U. S. 100. And in Williams v. Nottawa, 104 U. S. 209, it was held to be the duty of the circuit court to execute the provision of the fifth section of the Act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, 18 Stat. pt. 3, p. 470, by dismissing a suit of its own motion, whenever it appeared that it did not really and substantially involve a dispute or controversy properly within its jurisdiction, and equally so of this Court, when, on error or appeal, it appeared that the circuit court had failed to do so, in a proper case, to reverse its judgment or decree for that reason, and to remand the cause with direction to dismiss the suit.
In Grace v. American Central Insurance Company, 109 U. S. 278, it is true that this Court passed upon all the questions in the case affecting its merits, although it reversed the judgment because the jurisdiction of the circuit court was not apparent; but it was thought convenient and proper to do so, in that case, because the record itself made it probable that its omission of the statements necessary to show jurisdiction was inadvertent, and might be supplied for a future trial in the same court. In the present case, however, the want of jurisdiction appears affirmatively from the record.
For these reasons the judgment of the circuit court must be reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to remand the same to the Court of Common Pleas of Fulton County, Ohio.
It remains, however, to dispose of the question of costs.
order as to costs as shall be just;" and the bond given by the removing party under sec. 3 is a bond to pay "all costs that may be awarded by the said circuit court, if said court shall hold that such suit was wrongfully or improperly removed thereto." These provisions were manifestly designed to avoid the application of the general rule, which, in cases where the suit failed for want of jurisdiction, denied the authority of the court to award judgment against the losing party, even for costs. McIver v. Wattles, 9 Wheat. 650; Mayor v. Cooper, 6 Wall. 247.
against them and bring here the whole record. That discloses the want of jurisdiction in the circuit court to render any judgment, and this Court, in the exercise of its jurisdiction, reverses the judgment for that reason alone, its jurisdiction extending no further. It could not dismiss the writ of error for want of jurisdiction in the circuit court, for that would be to give effect to such want of jurisdiction, and this Court has jurisdiction of the writ of error to reverse the judgment on that ground. Assessor v. Osbornes, 9 Wall. 567, 76 U. S. 575.
"on the last day of the term, the court gave the following general directions to the clerk: that in cases of reversal, costs do not go, of course, but in all cases of affirmance they do, and that when a judgment is reversed for want of jurisdiction, it must be without costs."
"In cases of reversal of any judgment or decree in this Court, costs shall be allowed to the plaintiff in error or appellant unless otherwise ordered by the Court,"
writ of error, so to determine, and in that determination being compelled to reverse the judgment, of which, on other grounds, they complain, although denying their right to be heard for that purpose, has jurisdiction also, in order to give effect to its judgment upon the whole case against them, to do what justice and right seem to require by awarding judgment against them for the costs that have accrued in this Court.

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