Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/292

 284 FEDERAL REPORTER. �removal shall be filed "in sueh state court before or at the term at which said cause could be first tried, and before trial thereof." In this case the faots are that the act of congress took effeot March 3, 1875, at which time this cause was pend- ing in the state court, which was then in session. The term of the state court began in Fehruary, 1875, several weeks before the passage of the act, and continued some months after its passage. On the tenth of March, 1875, — seven days after the passage of the act, — the case was tried, and there was verdict and judgment for the plaintiff. The cause was taken by writ of error to the court of appeals, and thence to the supreme court of Missouri, and, having been reversed, was in January last remanded to the circuit court of the city of Bt. Louis for re-trial. Thereupon, on January 31st last, it was, upon petition of defendant, rcmored to this court. Was the Fehruary term, 1875, of the said state court, "the term at which said cause could be first tried," within the meaning of the act of congress? The position of the coun- sol for the defendant is that the term of court intended by the statute is a term beginning af!er the passage of the act, and to sustain this view he has cited nmnerous authorities, which are cited in the note of this ophiion. I have exam- imid these cases and do not find that they have the effeot claimed for them by counsel. �Some of them hold that where a case was tried before the passage of the act, and a new trial was granted subsequent to its passage, a petition for removal was in time if filed at any time before the first term at which such second trial could be had ; and others hold that where the case was pending when the act took effect, and for one or more terms before, and the petition for removal was filed at or before the first term thereafter at which the case could be tried, it was in time. In substance, the rule established by the adjudications is that the act applies to cases pending nt the time of its passage, and there shall be an opportnnitj to apply it to ail such cases. But no case has bsen cite 1 which holds the right of removal was not lost by voluntarily going to trial in the state court after the passage of the act, and I am certainly not ��� �