Court Opinion

ID: 9651593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:28:16.970645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:36.461217
License: Public Domain

TRIEBER, District Judge.
I concur in the result, and everything that is said in the opinion of Circuit Judge SANBORN, except that part of it which states that the plaintiff, by entering a general appearance and pleading to the merits in the federal court after the removal, but before filing a motion to remand, waived his right to have the cause remanded.
The petition for removal is based upon diversity of citizenship between the plaintiff and the defendant Kleinman. The plaintiff in his action joined as a defendant Clyde M. Cessna, the sheriff, to enj'oin him from executing a deed to the premises sold by him to Kleinman under a foreclosure in pursuance of a decree of the state court. As the defendant Cessna and the plaintiff were both citizens of the state of South Dakota, plaintiff, after having entered a general appearance and taken some action in the federal court, filed a motion to remand the cause upon that ground, which was by the court denied.
The opinion sustains the order denying the petition to remand upon two grounds: Eirst, that he was estopped by reason of having entered his general appearance and had asked for affirmative relief, prior to the filing of the motion to remand; and also upon the ground that the sheriff was not an indispensable party, therefore the cause was separable, and the defendant Kleinman, a citizen of a state, other than that of the plaintiff, and a nonresident of the state of South Dakota, of which state the plaintiff was a citizen, the cause was removable.
I concur in the opinion based on the last ground, but not the first. In my opinion there can be no removal from a state to a-federal court of a cause of action in which one of the defendants is a citizen of the same state as the plaintiff, and that can neither be waived, nor can the court retain jurisdiction, even by consent of parties. M., C. & L. M. Ry. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382, 4 S. Ct. 510, 28 L. Ed. 462; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Ry. v. Willard, 220 U. S. 413, 31 S. Ct. 460, 55 L. Ed. 521; Minnesota v. Northern Securities Co., 194 U. S. 48, 24 S. Ct. 598, 48 L. Ed. 870; Chicago, R. I. & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Nebraska, 251 F. 279, 163 C. C. A. 435.
The authorities cited in the majority opinion do not apply to actions in which the jurisdiction of the court as a federal court was involved, and in this cause the jurisdiction of the court below was invoked solely upon the ground of diversity of citizenship. They only refer to actions affecting the venue. A person sued in a District Court of the United States, or an action removed to it from a state court, when neither party to the action was a citizen of and a resident of the federal judicial district to which the cause was removed, but there was a diversity of citizenship, the entry of a general *142appearance, or the filing of any pleading other than a motion to remand, is a waiver, and would prevent a cause being remanded.
In Ex parte Wisner, 203 U. S. 449, 27 S. Ct. 150, 51 L. Ed. 264, it had been held that a cause instituted in a state court could not be removed to a federal court, although there was a diversity of citizenship, and the Chief Justice, who delivered the opinion of the court, went even further, and held that it was jurisdictional, and could not be- waived. That' part of the opinion which held that it could not be waived was expressly overruled in Western Loan & Savings Co. v. Butte & Boston Con. Mining Co., 210 U. S. 368, 28 S. Ct. 720, 52 L. Ed. 1101, and in effect In re Moore, 209 U. S. 490, 28 S. Ct. 706, 52 L. Ed. 904, 14 Ann. Cas. 1164, the court holding that the right to remove a cause pending in a state court in a district in which neither party resided, if there was the necessary diversity of citizenship was' a mere privilege and could be waived, and was waived by entering a general appearance, or doing some affirmative act prior to the motion to remand, as this only affected the venue and not the jurisdiction of the parties. This has been followed ever since.
In Lee v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 260 U. S. 653, 43 S. Ct. 230, 67 L. Ed. 443, the Wisner Case is entirely overruled. In General Investment Co. v. Lake Shore Ry., 260 U. S. 261, 43 S. Ct. 106, 67 L. Ed. 244, the Wisner Case in effect was overruled, although the court did not so state, as it did in Lee v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry., supra. But in the General Investment Co. Case the court made clear the distinction between the jurisdictional question and a mere privilege. It was there held:
“This restriction [referring to section 51, Judicial Code], as repeatedly has been held, does not affect the general jurisdiction of a District Court over a particular cause, but merely establishes a.personal privilege of the defendant, which he may insist on, or may waive, at his election, and does waive, where suit is brought in a district other than the one specified, if he enters an appearance without claiming his privilege. Central Trust Co. v. McGeorge, 151 U. S. 129; Interior Construction Co. v. Gibney, 160 U. S. 217; In re Moore, 209 U. S. 490, 501; United States v. Hvoslef, 237 U. S. 1, 12; Camp v. Gress, 250 U. S. 308, 311.
“It therefore- cannot be affirmed broadly that this suit could not have been brought against the New York Central Company in the District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, but only that it could not have been •brought and maintained in that court over a seasonable objection by the company to being sued therte. And the inability of the court to proceed with the cause in the presence of such an objection would not have resulted from any want of power to entertain and determine such a suit between such parties, if they were before it, but only because the company declined to yield the necessary jurisdiction of its person. Macon Grocery Co. v. Atlantic Coast Line R. R. Co., 215 U. S. 501, 503, 508.”
The statement in the majority opinion on the question of waiver is misleading, and, in view of the fact- that the sheriff was not an indispensable party, the defendant Klein-man had a right to remove the cause from the state to the federal court, and upon that ground the refusal to remand the cause should alone be affirmed. In'addition.to the authorities cited in the opinion, that the sheriff was not an indispensable party, See Salem v. Manufacturers Co., 264 U. S. 182, 44 S. Ct. 266, 68 L. Ed. 628, 31 A. L. R. 867, the latest authority on that subject.