1 S.D. 20 | S.D. | 1890
This cause comes before the court on a motion, made on the part of the defendant and appellant, for an order transferring the case to the United States circuit court, on the ground that it is one of federal jurisdiction, by reason of the citizenship of the parties. The action was commenced in the district court of Lawrence county in October 1883, and was tried in that court in April, 1889, when judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff and respondent for $15,315.70. In October, 1889, the case was appealed to the supreme court of the territory, and the record was filed in the office of the clerk of that court on the same day. Upon the admission of the State of South Dakota into the Union, on the 2d day of November, 1889, the case, being then pending in said territorial supreme court, came to the supreme court of the state. The citizenship of the parties not appearing in the pleadings or record, this motion is made on the verified petition of the defendant setting forth the citizenship of the parties at the time of the commencement of the action as follows: “That your petitioner was at the time of bringing this suit, and still is, a citizen of the State of New York, and that the said plaintiff was then a citizen of that portion of the Territory of Dakota which is now the State of South Dakota, and still is a citizen of South Dakota, and that the controversy in said action was and is wholly between the said plaintiff and said defendant;” and the petition concludes
In deciding this motion, it will be necessary to give a construction to those sections of the enabling act under which the State of South Dakota was admitted into the Union, providing for the transfer of cases pending in the territorial courts at the time the state was admitted to the federal courts, and more especially that part of Section 23 which provides that all cases ‘ ‘whereof the circuit or district courts by this act established might have had jurisdiction under the laws of the United States had such courts existed at the time of the commencement of such cases,” shall be transferred to the United States court.
Before proceeding to an examination of the provisions of the enabling act, before referred to, a brief review of the former laws, and the decision of the courts thereunder, pertaining to the transfer of cases, to the federal courts pending in other territories at the time of their admission as states, will perhaps« aid us in arriving at a correct conclusion as to the proper construction to be given the provisions of our own enabling act. Prior to 1847, there seems to have been great uncertainty in the matter of the transfer of cases pending in the territorial courts on the admission of the territories as states; but on the admission of the Territory of Florida as a state, without any special provisions for the transfer- of
It will be seen, therefore, that in the cases cited the citizenship of the respective parties — the plaintiffs as residents and citizens of the Territory of Nebraska, and the defendants as citizens of the State of New York — when the actions were commenced, are identically the same as those in the case at bar; and hence the cases cited would be decisive of this case, unless congress has, by our enabling act, made a radical change in the law governing the transfer of cases from the territorial to the federal courts in the new states recently admitted. The provisions for the transfer of cases*in our enabling act are not new ones, but arc at least the provisions in the twenty-third section now more particularly under consideration, copied from the Colorado act passed at the time of the admission of that territory as a state. On the admission of that state, congress made more full and specific provisions for the disposition of cases that had been commenced in the territorial court; and were pending therein when the state was admitted into the Union; and the eighth section of the Colorado act is the one from which the twenty-third section of our act was undoubtedly
With these observations on the law as it formerly existed, and on the adjudications under those laws, we proceed to a consideration of the proper construction to be given the provisions of the enabling act, approved February 22, 1889, under which the State of South Dakota was admitted into the Union, bearing upon the transfer of cases pending inthe territorial courts at the time of its admission. Section 21 of that act provides for a circuit and district court, and “that said courts, and the judges thereof, shall possess the same powers and jurisdiction, and perform the same duties required to be performed by other
It seems quite clear to me that congress intended by this act to preserve to parties litigant in the territorial courts, as far as practicable, the rights they had of appeal and writs of error to the supreme court of the United States, had the territory continued in existence, and also the right of citizens of other states to have their cases tried in the federal courts by judges who are supposed to be removed from all local influences and prejudices, — an object the framers of the constitution of the United States had in view in establishing the national judicial system. I do not see an> reason, outside of the act, why congress should have changed the existing law upon the subject of the transfer of cases on the admission of these new states, except to make the provisions more full, specific, and certain; and I am unable to discover in the act ■ any intention on the part of congress to do so. I am of the opinion, therefore, that the words' “had such courts existed” were intended to carry with them the meaning, had such state existed at the time the actions were commenced, in which such federal courts could have been legally established; and that the rights of par
In this case, it clearly appears that, had the State of South Dakota existed as a state, and the federal courts been established therein, at the time this action was commenced, the action could have been brought in or removed to the federal court, as the parties thereto would have been citizens of different states, within the terms of the constitution of the United States and the laws of congress conferring jurisdiction upon those courts. It is therefore ordered that the records, files, and papers in this cause be transferred to the circuit court of the United States for the district of South Dakota.