Case: ABERCROMBIE v. DUPUIS AND ANOTHER
Abbreviation: Abercrombie v. Dupuis
Decision Date: 1803-02
Docket Number: 
Citation: 1 Cranch 343
Volume: 5
Reporter: United States Reports
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Parties: ABERCROMBIE v. DUPUIS AND ANOTHER.
Judges: 
Pages: 343–343

Head Matter:
ABERCROMBIE v. DUPUIS AND ANOTHER.
Error to a judgment of the circuit court for the district of Georgia. The plaintiffs below (or petitioners as they are called in the record) “aver, that they do “severally reside without the limits of the district of Geor-“gia aforesaid, to wit, in the state of Kentucky, there-“fore they have the right to commence their said action “ in this honorable court, &c.” The defendant is called "Charles Abercrombie, of the district of Georgia, esquire.
To give jurisdiction to the courts of the United States the pleadings must expressly state the parties to be citizens of different states, or that one of them is an alien. It is not sufficient to say that they reside in different states.
It was assigned for error that the circuit court had not jurisdiction of the cause, because it does not appear upon the record that either of the parties is an alien, nor that the parties are citizens of different states. And for this error the judgment was reversed without argument.
The court said that the question had been decided after full argument in the case of Bingham v. Cabot, 3 Dal. 383, and they did not think proper to over-rule that case.
This averment follows immediately after the ad damnum, at the foot of the declaration.

Opinion:
The chief justice
said, he did not know how his opinion might be, if the question were a new one.