Bushnell v. Kennedy/Opinion of the Court

That the indebtedness of Bushnell to Mills & Frisby was a chose in action cannot be doubted; for under that comprehensive description are included all debts and all claims for damages for breach of contract, or for torts connected with contract. Nor can it be denied that every suitor who brings an action in a court of the United States must aver in his pleadings a state of facts which, under the National Constitution and laws, gives to the court jurisdiction of his suit.

In the case before us the suit was brought in the State court, where no question of jurisdiction, founded upon citizenship, could arise. In that court, therefore, there was no necessity for any averment in respect to citizenship. But under the 12th section of the Judiciary Act, any defendant, being a citizen of another State than the plaintiff or petitioner, is entitled, upon application at the proper time, to have his cause removed to a Circuit Court of the United States; and in the case under consideration, the defendant filed his petition, averring the requisite facts as to his own citizenship and the citizenship of the petitioners, and, thereupon, obtained an order for removal.

The order was, doubtless, rightly made. The jurisdiction of the cause was regularly transferred to the Circuit Court, and the cause stood in that court as if brought there by original process. The jurisdiction thus acquired by the Circuit Court was in no sense appellate. Removal, under our peculiar system of State and National jurisdictions, is simply a mode in which the right to resort under certain circumstances to the latter rather than the former is secured to defendants as well as plaintiffs.

(1st.) Whether the 11th section of the Judiciary Act applies to a suit instituted by the assignees of such a chose in action as is shown in the pleadings? and—

(2d.) Whether valid objection can be taken to jurisdiction of such a suit when removed to the Circuit Court by the defendant under the 12th section.

Upon the first question, it may be observed that the denial of jurisdiction of suits by assignees has never been taken in an absolutely literal sense. It has been held that suits upon notes payable to a particular individual or to bearer may be maintained by the holder, without any allegation of citizenship of the original payee; though it is not to be doubted that the holder's title to the note could only be derived through transfer or assignment. So, too, it has been decided, where the assignment was by will, that the restriction is not applicable to the representative of the decedent. And it has also been determined that the assignee of a chose in action may maintain a suit in the Circuit Court to recover possession of the specific thing, or damages for its wrongful caption or detention, though the court would have no jurisdiction of the suit if brought by the assignors. And it has recently been very strongly argued that the restriction applies only to contracts 'which may be properly said to have contents;' 'not mere naked rights of action founded on some wrongful act, some neglect of duty to which the law attaches damages, but rights of action founded on contracts which contain within themselves some promise or duty to be performed.'

And this view of the restriction seems to be warranted by the consideration of the mischief which it was intended to prevent. Not a little apprehension was excited at the time of the adoption of the Constitution in respect to the extent of the jurisdiction vested in the National courts; and that apprehension was respected in the Judiciary Act, which soon afterwards received the sanction of Congress. It was obvious that numerous suits, by assignees, under assignments made for the express purpose of giving jurisdiction, would be brought in those courts if the right of assignees to sue was left unrestricted. It was to prevent that evil and to keep the jurisdiction of the National courts within just limits that the restriction was put into the act.

This view has the sanction of Chief Justice Marshall, who, in the case of the Bank of the United States v. The Planters' Bank of Georgia, used this language: 'It was apprehended that bonds and notes given in the usual course of business, by citizens of the same State to each other, might be assigned to the citizens of another State, and thus render the maker liable to a suit in a Federal court.'

And when it is remembered what class of actions it is, which, upon the principles of the common law, can be maintained by an assignee in his own name, it may well be admitted that it would not have been an unreasonable construction of the restriction if it had been applied only to notes, bonds, and other written contracts, containing promises to pay money, upon which an assignee could sue without using the name of the assignor. Of such contracts, certainly, it may with more propriety be said that they have 'contents,' than of claims for damages arising either from torts or from breaches of contracts.

It is true that at an earlier day a different construction was given to it. In Sere v. Pitot, it was held that an assignee, by act of the law, as the general assignee of the effects of an insolvent, could not sue in the Circuit Court unless the insolvent himself might sue. It is not easy to reconcile this opinion with the later jndgments; but it is not necessary now to determine definitely the true construction of the restriction, as we think that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court over the cause before us can be well supported on the 12th section. That section, as we have already stated, provides for the removal of suits by defendants. The restriction in the 11th section is not found in the 12th. Nor does the reason for the restriction exist. In the 11th section its office was to prevent frauds upon the jurisdiction, and vexation of defendants, by assignments made for the purpose of having suits brought in the name of assignees, but in reality for the benefit of assignors. In the 12th it would have no office, for the removal of suits could not operate as a fraud on jurisdiction, and was a privilege of defendants, not a hardship upon them.

It is true, indeed, as was said in argument, that the section provides that after removal 'the cause shall then proceed in the same manner as if it had been brought by original process;' but we cannot recognize the validity of the inference that the defendant, before pleading in the Circuit Court, may move to dismiss the suit for want of jurisdiction. This construction would enable the non-resident defendant in a State court to remove the suit against him into a Circuit Court, and then, by a simple motion to dismiss, defeat the jurisdiction of both courts. Such a construction, unless imperatively required by the plain language of the act, is wholly inadmissible. And it is clear that the language of the act does not require it. Its plain meaning is that the suit shall proceed, not that it shall proceed unless the defendant moves to dismiss. The defendant is not in court against his consent, but by his own act, and the suit is to proceed as if brought by original process, and the defendant had waived all exception to jurisdiction, and pleaded to the merits. Under the 11th section the exception to jurisdiction is the privilege of the defendant, and may be waived; for the suit is still between citizens of different States, and the jurisdiction still appears in the record. The first act of the defendant, indeed, under the 12th section, is something more than consent, something more than a waiver of objection to jurisdiction, it is a prayer for the privilege of resorting to Federal jurisdiction, and he cannot be permitted afterwards to question it.

We cannot doubt, therefore, that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction of the case under consideration. We are all of opinion that the court erred in remanding the cause to the jurisdiction of the State court, and the order to that effect must be

REVERSED.