Pennsylvania v. Quicksilver Company/Opinion of the Court

By the second section of the third article of the Constitution it is ordained that the judicial power shall extend 'to all controversies between a State and the citizens of another State.' The second clause of this section provides 'that in all cases affecting ambassadors, &c., and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. . . In all other cases before mentioned it shall have appellate jurisdiction.' This second clause distributes the jurisdiction conferred upon the Supreme Court in the previous one into original and appellate jurisdiction; but does not profess to confer any.

The thirteenth section of the Judiciary Act, which provides for the jurisdiction of this court, accords with this construction.

A State, therefore, may bring a suit, by virtue of its original jurisdiction, against a citizen of another State, but not against one of her own. And the question in this case is whether it is sufficiently disclosed in the declaration that this suit is brought against a citizen of California. And this turns upon another question, and that is, whether the averment there imports that the defendant is a corporation created by the laws of that State; for, unless it is, it does not partake of the character of a citizen within the meaning of the cases on this subject.

The court is of opinion that this averment is insufficient to establish that the defendant is a California corporation. It may mean that the defendant is a corporation doing business in that State by its agent; but not that it had been incorporated by the laws of the State. It would have been very easy to have made the fact clear by averment, and, being a jurisdictional fact, it should not have been left in doubt. Indeed, it was admitted in the argument that the defendant was a Pennsylvania corporation, and the jurisdiction sought to be sustained by a suit against this agency. We have already shown that this is unavailable to support the jurisdiction.

WRIT DISMISSED.