In Re Hohorst
after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court;
By the Constitution of the Hnited States, art. 3, sect. 2, the .judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity,
By the act of March 3, 1887, c. 373, § 1, as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888, c..866, “the Circuit Courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature, >. at common law or' in equity, where the matter in dispute exu ceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value, óí two thousand dollars, and arising under the Constitution on laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall he’, made, under their authority, or in which controversy the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners, or in which there shall be a controversy between citizens of different States,” “or.a controversy between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, or- a controversy between citizens of a State and foreign States, citizens or subjects.” 24 Stat. 552; 25 Stat. 434.
The intention of Congress is. manifest, at least as to cases of. which the courts of the several States have concurrent jurisdiction, and which involve' a certain amount or value, to vest in the Circuit Courts of the United States full and effectual jurisdiction, as contemplated by the Constitution, over each of the classes of controversies above- mentioned-; and (what particularly concerns the case at bar) Congress, following the very words of the Constitution, has here vested in those courts jurisdiction of controversies “ between citizens of a State and foreign States, citizens or subjects.”
The question then arises how far the jurisdiction thus conferred over this last class of controversies, and especially over a suit by a citizen of a State against a foreign citizen or subject, is affected by the subsequent provisions of the same section, by which, after other regulations of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts and'District Courts of the United States,
Of these two provisions, the latter relates only to suits between citizens of different States of the Unión, and is therefore manifestly inapplicable to a suit brought by a citizen of one of these States against an alien. And the former of the two provisions cannot reasonably be construed to apply to such a suit.
The words' of that provision, as it now stands upon the statute book, are that “ no civil suit shall be brought before either of said courts against any person by any original process or-proceeding in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant.” These words evidently look to those persons, and those persons only, who are inhabitants of some district within the United States. Their object is to distribute among the particular districts the general jurisdiction fully and clearly granted iu the earliér part of- the same section; and not to wholly annul, or defeat that jurisdiction over any case comprehended in the grant. To construe the provision as applicable to all suits between a citizen and an alien would leave the courts of the United States open to aliens against citizens, and close them to citizens against aliens. Such a construction is not required by the language of the provision, and would be inconsistent’ with the general intent of the section as a whole.
This view is confirmed by a consideration of the earlier statutes upon this subject, which, 'although repealed, may properly be referred to in aid of the construction of existing laws.
Ex parte Crow
Dog,
Moreover, the present suit is for an infringement of a patent for an invention, the jurisdiction of the national courts over which depends upon the subject-matter, and not ■ upon the parties; and, by statutes in force at the time of the passage of the acts of 1887 and 1888, the courts of the nation had original jurisdiction “ exclusive of the courts of the several States,” “ of all cases arising under the patent-right or copyright-laws of the United States,” without regard to the amount or value in dispute. Rev. Stat. § 629, cl. 9; § 711, cl. 5. The section now in question, at the outset, speaks only of so much of the civil jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts of the United States, as is “ concurrent with the courts of the several States,-” and as concerns cases in which the matter in dispute exceeds two thousand dollars in amount or value. The grant to the Circuit Courts of the United States, in this section, of jurisdiction over-a class of cases described generally as “ arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States,” does not affect the jurisdiction granted by earlier • statutes to any court of the United States over specified cases of that class. If the
It was contended in behalf of the company that this case was governed by the recent decisions of this court in
Shaw
v.
Quincy Mining Co.,
Upon deliberate advisement, and for the reasons above stated, •we are of opinion that the provision of the existing statute, which prohibits suit to be brought against any person “in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant,” is inapplicable to an alien or a foreign corporation sued here, and especially in a suit for the infringement of a patent right; and that, consequently, such a person or corporation may be sued by a citizen of a State of the Union in any district in which valid service can be made upon the defendant.
In re Louisville Underwriters,
• The question, then, whether the Hamburg-American Packet Company was bound to answer to the suit brought by this petitioner against it, depended upon the question whether Henry B. Kunhardt, Sr., upon whom the subpoena was served,
The marshal’s return upon the subpoena states that-the service thereof upon the company was made by serving it upon said Kunhardt, “ general agent for said company.” This return, of course, is not conclusive of that fact. But upon the affidavits filed by the company, giving them the utmost effect in its favor,;the real state of- facts was as follows: There is' no room for suggesting that there .was within the district any director or other officer of the company, or any agent expressly authorized to accept service upon it. The company’s docks where its steamships land and take and discharge cargo, and its office for the transaction of matters immediately connected with its actual industrial operations in this country, were in. the State of New Jersey, and under the charge of a superintendent employed and paid by the corporation for the purpose, and not a member of the firm of Kunhardt & Co.' But the usual monetary and financial transactions of the corporation were transacted by that firm, .as agents of the corporation, at the office of the firm in the city of New York, which had been advertised by the corporation as its own office.
The firm of Kunhardt & Co. being the financial agents of the corporation, the office of the firm being in the city of New York, and being the office of the corporation for- the transaction of its monetary and financial business in this country, the service of the subpoena in New York upon the head of the firm as general agent of the corporation, was a sufficient service upon the corporation.
St. Clair
v. Cox,
The Hamburg-American Packet Company being liable to this suit in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York if duly served with process.in the district, and having been so served, and the order of that court .dismissing the suit as against the corporation not being
The order of the Circuit Court dismissing the bill as against the corporation was made on April 11,18^89. Six weeks after-wards, thei plaintiff appealed from that order; and his appeal was entered in this court on the first day of October term, 1889. The appellee might, at that or any subsequent term, under Rule 6, have made and submitted on - briefs a motion to dismiss that appeal.; but never did so before the case was called for argument in the regular order of the docket on March 13, 1893. The delay in disposing of that appeal, therefore, was less owing to the- plaintiff than to the defendant. The appeal was dismissed for want of jurisdiction on March 27, 1893; and within five weeks afterwards the plaintiff presented his' application for leave to file this petition for a writ of mandamus,- and obtained a rule to show cause, returnable • at. the present term. There is no ground, therefore, for imputing to him such laches as should deprive him of this remedy.
.These reasons being conclusive in favor of issuing a .writ of mandamus to the Circuit Court to set aside the order of dismissal, and to take jurisdiction of the bill as against the defendant corporation, even if the appearance in its behalf in that court had been only a special appearance for the purpose of moving to dismiss the bill for want of jurisdiction, it is unnecessary to consider whether, under the circumstances of the case, the corporation was rightly allowed to amend its general appearance into a special appearance, or whether the action of the Circuit Court in that respect could be-controlled by writ of mandamus.
Writ of ma/ndamus to issue.