Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/164/271/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 00:23:10+00:00

Document:
The filing by the defendant in an action in a state court of a petition for its removal to the proper Circuit Court of the United States does not prevent the defendant, after the case is removed, from moving in the federal court to dismiss it for want of jurisdiction of the person of the defendant in the state court or in the federal court.
Joseph Brow commenced suit in the Circuit Court of Wayne County, Mich. against the Wabash Western Railway to recover the sum of twenty thousand dollars for personal injuries (caused, as he alleged, by defendant's negligence) by the service, September 24, 1892, of a declaration and notice to appear and plead within twenty days, on Fred J. Hill, as agent of the company, which declaration and notice were subsequently filed in that court. On the 7th of October, defendant filed its petition and bond for removal in that court, and an order accepting said bond, and removing the cause to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan and directing the transmission of a transcript of record was entered.
"a corporation created and existing under the laws of the State of Missouri, having its principal business office at the City of St. Louis in said state, and a citizen of the said State of Missouri and a resident of said state and that the plaintiff, Joseph Brow, was then, and still is, a citizen of the State of Michigan, and a resident of the County of Wayne, in said state."
"And now comes the Wabash Western Railway, defendant (appearing specially for the purpose of this motion), and moves the court, upon the files and records of the court in this cause and upon the affidavit of Fred J. Hill, filed and served with this motion, to set aside the service of the declaration and rule to plead in this cause and to dismiss the same for want of jurisdiction of the person of the defendant in the state court from which this cause was removed, and in this Court."
"the Wabash Railroad Company, a corporation which owns and operates a railroad from Detroit to the Michigan state line, and was not an agent of the Wabash Western Railway, defendant in this suit,"
"did not own, operate, or control any railroad in the State of Michigan or have any officers or agent of any description therein, and did no business and had no property and no place of business in said state, and that on said day deponent was not a ticket or station agent of the said defendant nor an officer or agent of the defendant of any description."
"And the said defendant, appearing and pleading under protest, and excepting to the refusal of the court to grant its motion to dismiss, by Alfred Russell, its attorney, comes and demands a trial of the matters set forth in the declaration of the said plaintiff."
of this suit, the defendant had no agent, business, property, officer, or servant in the State of Michigan, and had not been served, and had not appeared.
The court overruled the protest, and defendant duly excepted. An instruction embracing the same point was also asked by defendant and refused, and an exception taken.
A writ of error was allowed from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the cause heard by that court. Among the errors assigned were the refusal of the circuit court to grant the motion to set aside the service of declaration and rule to plead, and to dismiss the cause; the compelling of defendant to go to trial against its protest, the court having no jurisdiction over its person, and the refusal of the instruction presenting the same point. The opinion is reported in 65 F. 941, and fully discusses the objection to the jurisdiction of the state court over defendant's person, ruling that the filing of a petition for removal to the circuit court effected a general appearance, and that it was too late, after such removal had been perfected, for it, in the circuit court, to attempt to plead that that court had no personal jurisdiction over the company by virtue of the process issued. The case was also considered upon the merits, and the judgment was affirmed. Thereupon application was made by plaintiff in error to this Court to issue a writ of certiorari to the circuit court of appeals, which was granted, and, the record having been sent up, the cause was submitted on briefs.
the defendant by the service. Did the application for removal amount to such an appearance as conceded jurisdiction over the person?
We have already decided that when, in a petition for removal, it is expressed that the defendant appears specially and for the sole purpose of presenting the petition, the application cannot be treated as submitting the defendant to the jurisdiction of the state court for any other purpose. Goldey v. Morning News, 156 U. S. 518.
"how far a petition for removal, in general terms, without specifying and restricting the purpose of the defendant's appearance in the state court, might be considered, like a general appearance, as a waiver of any objection to the jurisdiction of the court over the person of the defendant"
was not required to be determined, and was therefore reserved, but we think that the line of reasoning in that case, and in the preceding case of Martin v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 151 U. S. 673, compels the same conclusion on the question as presented in the case before us.
that it was rightfully pending in the state court or that the defendant could have been compelled to answer therein, but enables the defendant to avail himself, in the circuit court of the United States, of any and every defense duly and seasonably reserved and pleaded to the action 'in the same manner as if it had been originally commenced in said circuit court.' 156 U.S. 156 U. S. 523, 156 U. S. 525."
should be filed in the state court as soon as the defendant was required to make any defense whatever in that court, so that if the case should be removed, the validity of any and all of his defenses should be tried and determined in the circuit court of the United States."
151 U.S. 151 U. S. 686-687.
"the party has a right to the opinion of the federal court on every question that may arise in the case, not only in relation to the pleadings and merits, but to the service of process, and it would be contrary to the manifest intent of Congress to hold that a party who has the right to remove a cause is foreclosed as to any question which the federal court can be called upon under the law to decide."
An appearance which waives the objection of jurisdiction over the person is a voluntary appearance, and this may be effected in many ways, and sometimes may result from the act of the defendant, even when not in fact intended. But the right of the defendant to a removal is a statutory one, and he is obliged to pursue the course pointed out, and when he confines himself to the enforcement of that right in the manner prescribed, he ought not to be held thereby to have voluntarily waived any other right he possesses. An acknowledged right cannot be forfeited by pursuit of the means the law affords of asserting that right. Bank v. Slocomb, 14 Pet. 65. The statute does not require the removing party to raise the question of jurisdiction over his person in the state court before removing the cause, or to reserve that question in respect of a court which is to lose any power to deal with it, and to decide that the presentation of the petition and bond is a waiver of the objection would be to place a limitation upon the jurisdiction of the circuit court which is wholly inconsistent with the act.
petition and bond and proceed no further in such suit," and if the cause be removable, an order of the state court denying the application is ineffectual, for the petitioner may, notwithstanding, file a copy of the record in the circuit court and that court must proceed in the cause.
It is conceded that if defendant had stated that it appeared specially for the purpose of making the application, that would have been sufficient, and yet when the purpose for which the applicant comes into the state court is the single purpose of removing the cause, and what he does has no relation to anything else, it is not apparent why he should be called on to repeat that this is his sole purpose, and when removal is had before any step is taken in the case, as the statute provides that "the cause shall then proceed in the same manner as if it had been originally commenced in said circuit court," it seems to us that it cannot be successfully denied that every question is open for determination in the circuit court, as we have indeed already decided.
The circuit court of appeals held that a petition to remove, without more, was tantamount to a general appearance, but that this result could be avoided by a special appearance accompanying, or made part of, the petition, which would not be waived by or be inconsistent with the general appearance, because the application was analogous to an objection to jurisdiction over the subject matter. We do not concur in this view. By the exercise of the right of removal, the petitioner refuses to permit the state court to deal with the case in any way because he prefers another forum to which the law gives him the right to resort. This may be said to challenge the jurisdiction of the state court in the sense of declining to submit to it, and not necessarily otherwise.
We are of opinion that the filing of a petition for removal does not amount to a general appearance, but to a special appearance only.
Section 12 of the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789, c. 20, required the petition for removal to be filed by the defendant "at the time of entering his appearance in such state court" (1 Stat. 79), and those words were omitted in the act of 1887, though probably the omission is of no special significance. Some cases are referred to, however, which were decided under that section, and have not been followed under the present statute. Pollard v. Dwight, 4 Cranch 421; Bushnell v. Kennedy, 9 Wall. 387; Sayles v. Northwestern Insurance Co., 2 Curtis 212. These were all cases of attachment, and of jurisdiction asserted in the state courts through the levy of the writs. The two last cited were satisfactorily disposed of in Goldey v. Morning News.
"by appearing to the action, the defendants in the court below placed themselves precisely in the situation in which they would have stood, had process been served upon them, and consequently waived all objections to the nonservice of process."
The judgment of the circuit court of appeals is reversed; the judgment of the circuit court is also reversed, and the cause remanded to that court, with directions to grant a new trial, sustain the motion to set aside the service of the declaration and rule to plead, and dismiss the action.

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