Interior Construction & Improvement Company v. Gibney/Opinion of the Court

by Horace Gray

United States Supreme Court

160 U.S. 217

Interior Construction & Improvement Company  v.  Gibney

The record shows that the only matter tried and decided in the circuit court was a demurrer to the plea to the jurisdiction; and the petition, upon which the writ of error was allowed, asked only for the review of the judgment that the court had no jurisdiction of the action. The question of jurisdiction alone is thus sufficiently certified to this court, as required by the act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, § 5 (26 Stat. 828). In re Lehigh Mining & Manuf'g Co., 156 U.S. 322, 15 Sup. Ct. 375; Shields v. Coleman, 157 U.S. 168, 15 Sup. Ct. 570.

The act of March 3, 1887, c. 373, as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888, c. 866, confers upon the circuit courts of the United States original jurisdiction of all civil actions, at common law or in equity, between citizens of different states, in which the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of $2,000, and provides that, 'where the jurisdiction is founded only on the fact that the action is between citizens of different states, suit shall be brought only in the district of the residence of either the plaintiff or the defendant.' 24 Stat. 552; 25 Stat. 433.

The circuit courts of the United States are thus vested with general jurisdiction of civil actions, involving the requisite pecuniary value, between citizens of different states. Diversity of citizenship is a condition of jurisdiction, and, when that does no appear upon the record, the court, of its own motion, will order the action to be dismissed. But the provision as to the particular district in which the action shall be brought does not touch the general jurisdiction of the court over such a cause between such parties, but affects only the proceedings taken to bring the defendant within such jurisdiction, and is a matter of personal privilege, which the defendant may insist upon, or may waive, at his election; and the defendant's right to object that an action within the general jurisdiction of the court is brought in the wrong district is waived by entering a general appearance, without taking the objection. Gracie v. Palmer, 8 Wheat. 699; Toland v. Sprague, 12 Pet. 300, 330; Ex parte Schollenberger, 96 U.S. 369, 378; Railway Co. v. McBride, 141 U.S. 127, 11 Sup. Ct. 982; Southern Pac. Co. v. Denton, 146 U.S. 202, 206, 13 Sup. Ct. 44; Railway Co. v. Saunders, 151 U.S. 105, 14 Sup. Ct. 257; Central Trust Co. v. McGeorge, 151 U.S. 129, 14 Sup. Ct. 286; Express Co. v. Todd, 12 U.S. App. 351, 5 C. C. A. 432, 56 Fed. 104.

In Smith v. Lyon, 133 U.S. 315, 10 Sup. Ct. 303, this court held that the provision of the act of 1888, as to the district in which a suit between citizens of different states should be brought, required such a suit, in which there was more than one plaintiff or more than one defendant, to be brought in the district in which all the plaintiffs, or all the defendants, were inhabitants.

When there are several defendants, some of whom are, and some of whom are not, inhabitants of the district in which the suit is brought, the question whether those defendants who are inhabitants of the district may take the objection, if the nonresident defendants have not appeared in the suit, has never been decided by this court. Strong reasons might be given for holding that, especially where, as in this case, an action is brought against the principals and sureties on a bond, and one of the principals is a nonresident and does not appear, the defendants who do come in may object, at the proper stage of the proceedings, to being compelled to answer the suit.

But in the present case it is unnecessary to decide that question, because one of the principals and both sureties, being all the defendants who pleaded to the jurisdiction, had entered a general appearance long before they took the objection that the sureties were citizens of another district. Defendants who have appeared generally in the action cannot even object that they were themselves inhabitants of another district, and, of course, cannot object that others of the defendants were such.

Judgment reversed, and case remanded, with directions to sustain the demurrer to the plea, and for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

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