Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/120/450/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 06:58:45+00:00

Document:
In many cases adjudged in this Court since McIntire v. Wood, that case has been referred to as settling the law on the point to which it relates, as in The Secretary v. McGarrahan, 9 Wall. 298, 76 U. S. 311; Bath County v. Amy, 13 Wall. 244, and Heine v. Levee Commissioners, 19 Wall. 655.
The same principles have been asserted by this Court in cases arising since the Act of March 3, 1875, as in County of Greene v. Daniel, 102 U. S. 187, 102 U. S. 195; in United States v. Schurz, 102 U. S. 378, 102 U. S. 393; in Davenport v. County of Dodge, 105 U. S. 237, 105 U. S. 242-243, and in Louisiana v. Jumel, 107 U. S. 711, 107 U. S. 727.
in terms which are the same legally. In § 1, the suit of which "original cognizance" is given is "a suit of a civil nature at common law or in equity," where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of $500, and "in which there shall be a controversy between citizens of different states." In § 2, the language is identical except that the suit is to be a suit "of a civil nature at law or in equity." In § 11 of the act of 1789, the original cognizance given to the circuit court was of "all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity," where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of $500, and "the suit is between a citizen of the state where the suit is brought and a citizen of another state." In § 12 of that act, jurisdiction by removal was given to the circuit courts of a like suit. Now if, as has always been held, "original cognizance," under § 11 of the act of 1789, did not exist of proceedings like those before us, founded on citizenship, it must necessarily follow that original cognizance cannot exist, under § 1 of the act of 1875, of such a proceeding, founded on citizenship. If so, it is impossible to see how, with legally identical language in § 2 with that in § 1, jurisdiction by removal can exist, under § 2 of the act of 1875, of proceedings like those before us, founded on citizenship. This view is entirely aside from the principle which has controlled in some cases, where a restriction as to original jurisdiction, contained in other provisions of § 11 of the act of 1789, did not exist in § 12 of that act in regard to jurisdiction by removal, or in other removal statutes. Of that character was the restriction in § 11 on the right of an assignee of a chose in action to sue if the suit could not have been prosecuted in the court had the assignment not been made, as illustrated by the cases cited by the plaintiff in error of City of Lexington v. Butler, 14 Wall. 282, and Claflin v. Commonwealth Ins. Co., 110 U. S. 81.
In Gaines v. Fuentes, 92 U. S. 10, an application for removal was sustained under the local prejudice Act of March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 558, of a suit to annul a will on the ground that the act, in authorizing the removal, invested the federal court by that fact with all needed jurisdiction to adjudicate the case.
But that case was not one of a mandamus, to which the implied restriction of the statute in respect to that writ was applicable. The same remark may be made as to Boom Company v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403, where the removal proceeding was one to condemn lands for the use of a boom company, and as to Hess v. Reynolds, 113 U. S. 73, where the removal was of a proceeding in a probate court to obtain payment of a claim against the estate of a deceased person, and as to Bliven v. New England Screw Co., 3 Blatchford 111, and Barney v. Globe Bank, 5 Blatchford 107, where foreign corporations successfully maintained jurisdiction by removal in ordinary suits, although they could not have been compulsorily brought into the circuit court by original process.
As this Court, while §§ 11 and 12 of the act of 1789 were in force, and § 14 of that act was also in force, always held, even where the requisite diversity of citizenship existed, that the restriction of § 14 operated to prevent original cognizance by a circuit court, under § 11, of a proceeding by mandamus not necessary for the exercise of a jurisdiction which had previously otherwise attached, so, with §§ 1 and 2 of the act of 1875 in force at the same time with § 716 of the Revised Statutes, the restriction of § 716 must operate to prevent cognizance by removal, by a circuit court, under § 2 of the act of 1875, even where the requisite diversity of citizenship exists, of a like proceeding by mandamus. As was said by this Court, speaking by MR. JUSTICE MILLER, in Hess v. Reynolds, 113 U. S. 73, 113 U. S. 79-80, the language of the repealing clause of the act of 1875 is "that all acts and parts of acts in conflict with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed," and the statute to be repealed must be in conflict with the act of 1875, or that effect does not follow. There is nothing in § 2 or any other part of the act of 1875 which is in conflict with or has the effect to abolish the restriction of § 716, just as there was nothing in § 11 or § 12, or any other part of the act of 1789 which was in conflict with or had the effect to abolish the restriction of § 14 of that act.
may be called. Suits at law and equity include every form of proceeding except those peculiar to admiralty, ecclesiastical or probate, and military jurisdictions. And even in matters savoring of ecclesiastical process, after an issue has been formed between definite parties, we have held that the controversy came under the head of a suit at law. Gaines v. Fuentes, 92 U. S. 17; Hess v. Reynolds, 113 U. S. 73. The broad terms used in the law were purposely employed, as it seems to us, to make the jurisdiction complete to the full extent which the Constitution intended it should have. It is true that in one or two cases we have intimated a distinction between the extent of jurisdiction given in the first and that given in the second sections of the act of 1875; but that distinction, if well founded, does not affect the present case, since they arise under the second section, which has been supposed to be the broader of the two, and, in any event, the ground of distinction is not here involved.

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