Louisville Company v. Wangelin/Opinion of the Court

It has been often decided that an action brought in a state court against two jointly for a tort cannot be removed by either of them into the circuit court of the United States, under the act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, § 2, upon the ground of a separable controversy between the plaintiff and himself, although the defendants have pleaded severally, and the plaintiff might have brought the action against either alone. 18 St. 471; Pirie v. Tvedt, 115 U.S. 41, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1034, 1161; Sloane v. Anderson, 117 U.S. 275, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 730; Mining Co. v. Canal Co., 118 U.S. 264, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1034; Hedge Co. v. Fuller, 122 U.S. 535, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1265. It is equally well settled that in any case the question whether there is a separable controversy which will warrant a removal is to be determined by the condition of the record in the state court at the time of the filing of the petition for removal, independently of the allegations in that petition, or in the affidavit of the petitioner, unless the petitioner both alleges and proves that the defendants were wrongfully made joint defendants for the purpose of preventing a removal into the federal court. In Mining Co. v. Canal Co., above cited, a suit by a canal company against a mining corporation and its agents, for polluting a stream of water belonging to the plaintiff, was held to have been rightly remanded to the state court in which it had been commenced, although the corporation's petition for removal alleged that it was the only real defendant, and that the other defendants were nominal parties only, and were sued for the purpose of preventing the corporation from removing the cause into the circuit court of the United States. Chief Justice WAITE, in delivering judgment, said: 'It is possible, also, that the company may be guilty and the other defendants not guilty; but the plaintiff, in its complaint, says they are all guilty, and that presents the cause of action to be tried. Each party defends for himself, but, until his defense is made out, the case stands against him, and the rights of all must be governed accordingly. Under these circumstances, the averments in the petition that the defendants were wrongfully made [parties] to avoid a removal can be of no avail in the circuit court upon a motion to remand, until they court upon a motion to remand, until they are pr ven; and that, so far as the present record discloses, was not attempted. The affirmative of this issue was on the petitioning defendant. That corporation was the moving party, and was bound to make out its case.' 118 U.S. 270, 271, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1038. In Little v. Giles, 118 U.S. 596, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 32, where a bill in equity charged the defendants jointly with having fraudulently deprived the plaintiff of her property, Mr. Justice BRADLEY, delivering the opinion of the court, said that one of the defendants 'could not, by merely making contrary averments in his petition for removal, and setting up a case inconsistent consistent with the allegations of the bill, segregate himself from the other defendants, and thus entitle himself to remove the case into the United States court.' 118 U.S. 600, 601, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 35. So in Railroad Co. v. Grayson, 119 U.S. 240, 244, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 190, in a suit in equity against two corporations, the question was whether there was a separable controversy between one of them and the plaintiff which would warrant a removal into the circuit court of the United States; and it was said by Chief Justice WAITE, and adjudged by this court, that the allegations of the bill must, for the purposes of that inquiry, be taken as confessed. To the same effect is Graves v. Corbin, ante, 196, (just decided.) In the case at bar, the declaration charged two corporations with having jointly trespassed on the plaintiff's land. Whether they had done so or not was a question to be decided at the trial; and it is not contended, and could not be, in the face of the decisions already cited, that the record of the state court, as it stood at the time of the filing of the petition for removal, showed a separable controversy between the plaintiff and either defendant. The argument in support of the jurisdiction of the federal court is that the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company was the only real defendant, because, at the time of the trespass complained of, the other defendant was not in existence. But this was a matter affecting the merits of the case, and one which the plaintiff was entitled to deny and disprove at the trial upon the issues joined by the pleadings. Both the defendants were sued and served as corporations, and pleaded as such, in the state court; and it is not denied that each of them was a corporation when the action was brought. The question whether one of them was in existence as a corporation at the time of the alleged trespass did not affect the question whether it could be now sued, but the question of its liability in the action; in other words, not the jurisdiction, but the merits, to be determined when the case came to trial. It could not be tried and determined in advance, as incidental to a petition by a co-defendant to remove the case into the circuit court of the United States. As to the suggestion, made in argument, that the Southeast & St. Louis Railway Company was fraudulently joined as a defendant in the state court for the purpose of depriving the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company of the right to remove the case into the circuit court of the United States, it is enough to say that no fraud was alleged in the petition for removal, or pleaded, or offered to be proved, in the circuit court. Judgment affirmed.