Court Opinion

ID: 9642114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:48:46.135166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:43.156551
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). The libel did not allege that the ship was within the United States, a jurisdictional averment under Blamberg v. U. S., 260 U. S. 452, 43 S. Ct. 179, 67 L. Ed. 346, of which there could be no waiver by appearance or otherwise, since it went to the power of the court. The interlocutory decree of dismissal was therefore right. The libelant did not amend, but, following an intimation of the judge, moved to transfer the cause to the district where, as it then for the first time appeared, the ship lay, and where it should originally have brought suit. This raised the question whether a libel filed in the wrong district can be removed to the right one in the *764court’s discretion under the last sentence of section 2.
The second sentence prescribing the places where the suit must be brought is in terms absolute) I do not believe that the last sentence conditions it. That was inserted for quite another purpose, that is for convenience in the trial of the cause, or perhaps only to reach other parties, as suggested in Nahmeh v. U. S., 267 U. S. 122, 126, 45 S. Ct. 277, 69 L. Ed. 536. In any.case it presupposes that the suit has been brought in the right court, or that the respondent consents to it where it is. If it also includes the correction of the libelant’s mistake in choosing his forum, Nahmeh v. U. S., 267 U. S. 122, 45 S. Ct. 277, 69 L. Ed. 536, would scarcely have been put on the ground it was, since the libelant had there asked to transfer and been denied.
If I am wrong, this curious possibility exists: A mistaken libelant may remove to the right court to escape dismissal, and then move back for the convenience of trial or to reach other parties. I do not believe that such a seesaw was ever- contemplated. Ordinarily there is no hardship in suffering dismissal and beginning again, and while unhappily there is in this ease, it is entirely due to the libelant’s delays. At any rate we may not twist the intent to escape a hard ease.
I vote to affirm.