Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/176/321.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 11:11:18+00:00

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This declaration was filed on December 29, 1896, and on January 4, 1897, the defendant appeared and filed a plea of not guilty.
On February 4, 1897, the defendant, after notice to the plaintiffs, asked leave to file further and special pleas denying that the court had jurisdiction of the action, denying that the defendant claimed title under the act of May 17, 1856, or under any other act of Congress or law of the United States, and alleging the pendency of a prior suit in equity between the same parties in the circuit court of the United States, and also the pendency in the circuit court of the sixth judicial circuit of the state of Florida, of a petition and proceeding by the defendant to condemn the land in dispute under its right of eminent domain under the laws of the state of Florida.
On February 10, 1897, the defendant moved for a continuance, which motion was on February 18 denied.
On March 11, 1897, after a consideration of this motion to dismiss, it was ordered in open court that said motion be dismissed. On the same day an agreement, signed by the attorneys of the respective parties, to waive a jury and that the cause might be tried by the court, was filed.
'It is considered by the court that the plaintiff's herein, William J. Bell, John W. Bell, Frank A. Bell, Eliza A. Bell, and Matilda P. Feihe, and George A. Bell, and Simon Bell, do receive and recover from the defendant, the Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad Company, the sum of $ 1,955, as well as for costs in this behalf; and it is further, considered that said plaintiff's have a fee-simple title in and to the lands and premises described as follows, to wit,' etc.
On April 10, 1897, the defendant moved the court for a writ of error and a citation to review the judgment in said cause, returnable to the United States circuit court of appeals, and for a supersedeas of the said judgment upon filing a bond. On the same day the writ of error was allowed, and it was ordered that, on the defendant filing a bond with sufficient sureties in the sum of $3,500, to be approved by the court or by the clerk thereof, the said writ should operate as a supersedeas of the judgment in said cause. A bond was approved and filed accordingly.
On May 24, 1898, the circuit court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the circuit court. 59 U. S. App. 189, 87 Fed. Rep. 369, 31 C. C. A. 9.
And thereupon, on June 2, 1898, a writ of error from this court was allowed.
J. C. Cooper, J. A. Hender- [176 U.S. 321, 325] son, and William Wirt Howe for plaintiff in error.
Mr. H. Bisbee submitted the case for defendant in error.
Our first inquiry is whether this court has jurisdiction to review the judgment of the circuit court of appeals. The writ of error in this case was brought under 6 of the judiciary act of March 3, 1891. If the judgment of the circuit court of appeals was final, under that section, this writ of error must be dismissed. In order to maintain our jurisdiction it must appear that the jurisdiction of the circuit court was not dependent solely upon the opposite parties being citizens of different states. Colorado Cent. Consol. Min. Co. v. Turck, 150 U.S. 138 , 37 L. ed. 1030, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 35; Press Pub. Co. v. Monroe, 164 U.S. 105 , 41 L. ed. 367, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 40.
This question must be answered upon an inspection of the declaration of the plaintiffs in the circuit court. Does it disclose that the plaintiffs invoked the jurisdiction of that court because the parties were citizens of different states, or because the case was alleged to be one arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States?
The action was in ejectment to recover possession of a tract of land in Hillsborough county, state of Florida. The plaintiffs were eight in number, three of whom were alleged to be citizens of the state of Texas, and there was no allegation as to the citizenship of the other five. The defendant, the Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad Company, was alleged to be a corporation organized and existing under the laws of Florida. Hence, upon the face of the declaration, the jurisdiction of the circuit court would have failed, at least as to five of the plaintiffs, if that jurisdiction depended solely on the citzenship of the parties. The declaration, however, alleges that the plaintiffs claim title to the land in dispute by virtue of a patent granted to their ancestor by the government of the [176 U.S. 321, 326] United States; that the defendant claimed title under the 1st section of an act of Congress entitled 'An Act Granting Public Lands in Alternate Sections to the States of Florida and Alabama, to Aid in the Construction of Certain Railroads in said States,' approved May 17, 1856; and, further, that the defendant railroad company claimed and insisted that it was entitled to locate and maintain the route of its road through the land in question under said act of Congress.
As, then, the plaintiffs in the circuit court claimed in their declaration that the controversy was one that turned on a con- [176 U.S. 321, 327] struction of the laws of the United States, and as both the courts below dealt with the case on that assumption, it is plain that it cannot be successfully contended in this court that the judgment of the circuit court of appeals was final because the jurisdiction of the circuit court was dependent entirely upon the opposite parties being citizens of different states.
Nor do we find merit in a second ground urged to maintain the motion to dismiss; namely, that the action was in ejectment; that the defendant admitted of record that it had no title; and that therefore the only question it could raise was one of jurisdiction. An inspection of the defendant's answer shows that, while it did disclaim title under the act of Congress, it claimed a right of possession on other grounds, with respect to which it had a right to be heard, if indeed the circuit court had jurisdiction.
We come to the case, then, as one in which we have a right to supervise the judgment of the circuit court of appeals. And the first question, and indeed, as we read the record, the only one we have to meet, is whether the circuit court had jurisdiction of the case. Not having, as we have seen, jurisdiction because of a controversy between citizens of different states, did it have jurisdiction because the case was one arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States? This question was answered affirmatively in both courts below, and this because, as it seemed to them, the plaintiff's declaration disclosed such a case.
It must be regarded as conclusively established by our decisions that the jurisdiction of the circuit court must appear in the plaintiff's statement of their case.
'Where, however, the original jurisdiction of a circuit court of the United States is invoked upon the sole ground that the determination of the suit depends upon some question of a Federal nature, it must appear, at the outset, from the declaration or the bill of the party suing, that the suit is of that character; in other words, it must appear in that class of cases that the suit was one of which the circuit court, at the time its jurisdiction is invoked, could properly take cognizance. If it does not so appear, then the court, upon demurrer or motion, or upon [176 U.S. 321, 328] its own inspection of the pleading, must dismiss the suit, just as it would remand to the state court a suit which the record, at the time of removal, failed to show was within the jurisdiction of the circuit court. It cannot retain it in order to see whether the defendant may not raise some question of a Federal nature upon which the right of recovery will finally depend; and, if so retained, the want of jurisdiction at the commencement of the suit is not cured by an answer or plea which may suggest a question of that kind.' Metcalf v. Watertown, 128 U.S. 588 , 32 L. ed. 543, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 173; Colorado Cent. Consol. Min. Co. v. Turck, 150 U.S. 138 , 37 L. ed. 1030, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 35; Oregon Short Line & U. N. R. Co. v. Skottowe, 162 U.S. 490 , 40 L. ed. 1048, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 869; Hanford v. Davies, 163 U.S. 273 , 41 L. ed. 157, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1051; Press Pub. Co. v. Monroe, 164 U.S. 105 , 41 L. ed. 367, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 40.
We do not, however, understand that these cases are questioned by the defendants in error, but their contention is that in the plaintiff's declaration it did sufficiently appear that a Federal question was necessarily involved, upon the solution of which the determination of the case depended.
In view of the frequent and recent decisions of this court on this subject, it is not necessary to argue the proposition that the mere assertion of a title to land derived to the plaintiffs under and by virtue of a patent granted by the United States, pre- [176 U.S. 321, 329] sents no question which, of itself, confers jurisdiction on a circuit court of the United States. Blockburn v. Portland Gold Min. Co. 175 U.S. 571 , 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 222, 44 L. ed.--.
But it seems to be thought that, by alleging that the defendant claimed and contended in the Land Department that the plaintiffs were not entitled under any of the laws of the United States to have a patent granted to them, and that the defendant at the time of the commencement of this suit claimed and insisted that the plaintiffs derived no title to the said land under and by virtue of the said patent, and at said time claimed that under the laws of the United States, and especially under and by virtue of the 1st section of an act of Congress entitled 'An Act Granting Public Lands in Alternate Sections to the States of Florida and Alabama, to Aid in the Construction of Railroads in said States,' approved May 17, 1856, it was entitled and had the right to locate the route of its railroad and construct the same through the said lands, and to be in possession thereof, on the ground, among other grounds, that the said 8 was a part of that tract of land which constituted at one time a military reservation known as the Fort Brooke Military Reservation, at Tampa, state of Florida,-there was presented a question needing for its solution a construction of laws of the United States.
'In each of the three cases now before this court, the only right claimed by the plaintiffs is under the law of Tennessee, and they assert no right whatever under the Constitution and laws of the United States. In the first and second bills the only reference to the Constitution or laws of the United States is the suggestion that the defendants will contend that the law of the state under which the plaintiffs claim is void because in contravention of the Constitution of the United States; and by the settled law of this court, as appears from the decisions above cited, a suggestion of one party that the other will or may set up a claim under the Constitution or laws of the United States does not make the suit one arising under that Constitution or those laws.' Chappell v. Waterworth, 155 U.S. 102 , 39 L. ed. 85, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 34; East Lake Land Co. v. Brown, 155 U.S. 488 , 39 L. ed. 233, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 357; Oregon Short Line & U. N. R. Co. v. Skottowe, 162 U.S. 490 , 40 L. ed. 1048, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 869.
Such observations are directly applicable to the present case, for the defendant, in its plea to the jurisdiction of the court, explicity admitted the plaintiffs' title to the land under the patent, and denied that the defendant claimed title to the land in dispute under the act of May 17, 1856, or under any other act of Congress, but placed its defense, by way of confession and avoidance, on totally different grounds than those mentioned in the declaration, and which involved no construction or application of the Constitution or laws of the United States.
It is contended, however, that, whether or not the circuit court had jurisdiction to determine the question of title to the land in dispute, or of the right of possession thereof, the plaintiffs' demand to recover mesne profits accruing between the pre-emption entry and the issuance of the patent presented a question within the jurisdiction of that court. It is not easy to perceive why, if the circuit court did not possess jurisdiction to decide the right of possession, it could have jurisdiction to pass upon the question of mesne profits, the right to recover which would depend on the right of possession.
In affirming this view of the case the circuit court of appeals cites Evans v. Durango Land & Coal Co. 49 U. S. App. 320, 80 Fed. Rep. 433, 25 C. C. A. 531. That was a case where the circuit court of appeals of the eighth circuit held that the inquiry as to the right of the plaintiff to recover mesne profits accruing while the alleged contest was depending and undetermined in the General Land Office involved an examination and construction of the laws of the United States. The case was brought to this court, but was dismissed on stipulation of the [176 U.S. 321, 332] parties. The report of the case does not disclose whether there was really a controversy between the parties respecting the construction of the land laws of the United States. What really seems to have been involved, in respect to mesne profits, was whether the doctrine of relation, which is a common-law doctrine, would enable the plaintiff, after having established his title, to recover the mesne profits which accrued while the plaintiff was wrongfully excluded from possession. Such a question would not seem to be a Federal one, but one incidental to the determination of the principal controversy concerning the right of possession.
At all events, there is nothing disclosed in the declaration in the present case showing that, so far as the damages and mesne profits are concerned, any Federal question was presented. If the circuit court had jurisdiction to determine the right of possession, and, in the exercise of that jurisdiction, decided in the plaintiffs' favor, the incidental question of the time when damages and profits would accrue to the plaintiffs would legitimately arise. But if that court had not jurisdiction to determine the controversy as to the right of possession, it could not draw to itself the jurisdiction of the case by considering what the consequences would be if the plaintiffs were permitted to recover possession.
Apart from the question of jurisdiction arising from the presence of any Federal question, can it be said that jurisdiction did attach in respect to those plaintiffs who were alleged to be citizens of Texas?
As we have seen, neither of the courts below were of that opinion. The judgment of the circuit court was in favor of all the plaintiffs jointly for the entire tract in dispute, and, in so doing, followed the plaintiffs' claim in their declaration, wherein they claimed title to the whole tract as belonging to them jointly. They did not allege that they were tenants in common, although in the findings the court found that the respective plaintiffs held undivided interests in the land.
In Barney v. Baltimore, 6 Wall. 280, 18 L. ed. 825, it was held that part owners or tenants in common in real estate of which partition is asked in equity have an interest in the subject-matter of the suit and in the relief sought, so intimately connected with that of their contenants that if these cannot be subjected to the jurisdiction of the court the bill will be dismissed.
As, then, in the present case the plaintiffs elected to assert a joint claim and title to the land in dispute, and recovered a [176 U.S. 321, 335] joint judgment for their undivided interests therein, and as the plaintiffs' declaration discloses no Federal question, the principles of the cited cases apply, and compel a dismissal of the suit for want of jurisdiction in the circuit court.
This conclusion withdraws from our consideration the errors assigned to the action of the courts below in respect to the defendant's several pleas of lis pendens.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed; the judgment of the Circuit Court is likewise reversed, and the cause is remanded to that court with directions to dismiss the action for want of jurisdiction.

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