Court Opinion

ID: 9445691
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:36:39.125101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:22.915262
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
“A vast and utterly unjustifiable part of federal litigation concerns only the-question of jurisdiction, on which great time and labor and expense are expended before the merits of a question are ever-reached.”1 Unjustifiable it may be, but the task of determining whether a controversy falls within the limited jurisdiction of the federal courts is an inevitable part of their judicial function.
In my view federal jurisdiction does not exist in this case. Citizenship of the-parties is not diverse. The controversy certainly does not arise under the Constitution, and I cannot perceive that it arises under the laws of the United States. Believing that the complaint should be dismissed for want of federal jurisdiction, I do not reach the merits.
The reasons for my view are substantially the same as those expressed by Judge (later Justice) Minton, dissenting in Toledo, P. & W. R. R. v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 7 Cir., 1942, 132 F.2d 265, 272-274. These reasons are fully set out in Judge MCALLISTER’S thorough discussion, and there is no point in re-paraphrasing them-here.