Bardley v. Rhines' Administrators/Opinion of the Court

The first proposition made by the counsel for the defendant in error, and by which the ruling of the court is maintained, depends for its soundness on the construction to be given to certain statutes of Pennsylvania, and will not be examined by us if the ruling of the court is well founded as to the second proposition.

There can be no doubt that the lease sued on here is a chose in action, and the assignors are described in the instrument as residing in the same State with defendants.

Two propositions are relied on as taking this case out of the prohibition of the statute: 1. That the plaintiff having purchased the lands which were the subject of the lease, became entitled thereby to the benefit of the lease, and the assignment was not necessary to enable him to maintain the action.

If he had shown, or offered to show that he had become the owner of the land, the court would probably have permitted him to do so. But as he only offered the lease and the assignment, the court could not admit them on the ground of a purchase of which there was no evidence.

2. Then it is argued that although Breeden & Co. might have been, as the lease shows, citizens of Pennsylvania when the lease was made, this may not have been so when suit was brought; and that, as the plaintiff was a citizen of Kentucky, and the defendants, of Pennsylvania, this makes a prim a facie case of jurisdiction in the court, which can only be defeated by evidence that the assignors were citizens of the same State with defendants when the suit was brought.

This court has decided the proposition otherwise. In Turner v. Bank of North America, the plaintiff recovered judgment in the Circuit Court as assignee of Biddle & Co. The only error assigned was, that it did not appear in the record that Biddle & Co. were citizens of a State other than North Carolina, in which district the defendant resided, and where he was sued; and for this cause, the judgment was reversed. The soundness of this decision is recognized in the cases of Mollan v. Torrance, and Bank of United States v. Moss, and we take the doctrine to be settled, that when a party claims in the Federal courts through an assignment of a chose in action, he must show affirmatively that the action might have been sustained by the assignor if no assignment had been made.

The case of De Sobry v. Nicholson, relied on by plaintiff's counsel, is not in point. There plaintiff had become possessed of all his partner's interest in the contract sued on without assignment, and none was relied on. The partner not being a necessary party, his citizenship in the same State with defendant did not defeat the jurisdiction.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.