35 F. 225 | U.S. Cir. Ct. | 1888
Our courts arc in direct conflict on the question whether or not, on a motion to remand, the amount in dispute is to be determined by the plaintiff’s demand,' or by the demand of the defendant, where he sets up a counter-claim, as in this case. Clarkson v. Manson, 4 Fed. Rep. 257; Manufacturing Co.v. Broderick, 6 Fed. Rep. 654; Dill. Rem. Causes, §§ 51, 64; Desty, Rem. Causes, 87, 88, 110, 111; West v. Aurora, 6 Wall. 139; Ryan v. Bindley, 1 Wall. 66; Hilton v. Dickinson, 108 U. S. 165, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 424; Bradstreet Co. v. Higgins, 112 U. S. 227, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 117. In the view the court takes of this case that question does not arise in such a manner as to imperatively demand its decision. If decided for the plaintiff it would necessarily result in remanding the case to the state court, it is true, and in that sense it is fairly presented for decision; hut if decided for the defendant, there is left another question w'hicli must be decided before our jurisdiction is established, and the one does not at all depend upon the other. However, it is proper to say that, while I pretermit the question hero, I take that course because I am strongly inclined to think that the above-cited decisions of the supreme court, and others that might be cited upon an analogous question concerning its own jurisdiction, would control that question against the
But it does not seem to me to at all follow from this that we are to disregard the statutory limitations upon the justice’s court or other special tribunal, or to disregard that peculiar method of procedure, and treat the question of “the matter in dispute” as if the justice’s court or special tribunal did not exist. The fallacy is in looking at the case as if originally brought in the circuit court, to which it is in fact carried by appeal, -because, after arriving there from the subordinate tribunal, it is to be tried de novo. It so happens that the plaintiff here, under our Tennessee laws, had the option to bring this suit in the circuit court originally, or to bring it in the justice’s court originally. Had he brought it in the circuit court originally, there could be no doubt about our jurisdiction by removal, for that is the court of plenary and general jurisdiction; and conceding that “the matter in dispute” is to be tested by the whole record, upon the counter-claim as well as upon the plaintiff’s claim, as above suggested, it conclusively appears that the amount is more than $500; But the plaintiff took the other course, and
But. again, let all that is claimed be conceded on that point, and T see no escape from the conclusive answer that the jurisdiction of the circuit court itself, as to this class of cases, is not plenary and lull, like it is in cases brought originally in that court, but that it is the jurisdiction of that court which is itself so limited by the restrictions of the statute that, ignoring the justice’s court as we are asked to do, we do not improve the position of the defendant in regard to “the matter.in dispute” under the removal act of congress. There is no reason why the legislature may not so arrange the jurisdiction of a court that cases coming into it under its own writ shall be unlimited in the amount of the jurisdiction, and these coming under the writ of a justice of the peace shall be restricted as to the amount of that jurisdiction; nor why any given case may not be made to fall, at the option of the plaintiff, within the one or the oilier class, according to his choice; but it is doing violence to this right of the legislature to hold that a case falling within the one class shall bo taken here, on a motion to remand, as if it had fallen within the other class.
We come, then, to the examination of “the matter in dispute” in this case, and it does seem to me entirely clear that it cannot exceed the minimum of §500, exclusive of costs, prescribed by the act of congress of 1875, under which the removal was had. The defendant lias a claim against the plaintiff of 83,000, if the allegation of the plea of set-off or recoupment be true, but not more than S500 of that claim could have been involved in the court from which this cause was removed, for no larger judgment than that could have been rendered in favor of the defendant in that court. It is entirely well settled, and, indeed, seems to be conceded by counsel in argument, that the state circuit court cannot, in eases pending in that court by the process of appeal from a justice’s court, give a judgment in behalf of a defendant upon his counter-claim or set-off larger than 8500, if due upon open account; that being the result of the rule which restricts the circuit court to the same jurisdiction the justice himself had. There is a suggestion of the argument that this rule applies only to a set-off arising out of claims of the defendant wholly independent of the plaintiff’s cause of action, and not to such as grow out of that cause of action, as this does. But upon a most critical examina
' Now, 'it cannot alter the inexorable result of this restriction of the rule of our state law in relation to the- jurisdiction of the state circuit court over suits pending there by appeal from a justice, that the matter in controversy between the plaintiff and the defendant as individuals is the claim of the plaintiff for its work on the one hand, plus a claim by the defendant on the other hand for $3,000 damages for doing that work in .such a manner that the contract to do it was broken, to the injury of the defendant. The constitution, it is true, gives us jurisdiction of controversies between citizens of different states, and in that sense th'e federal jurisdiction attaches to all such controversies. ’ But congress, in the exercise of its power to regulate the jurisdiction, has not seen fit to give us cognizance over the controversy at large between the persons, but restricts us to that controversy in the “suit” between parties litigant wherein “the matter in dispute” is over $500. It is not sufficient that the parties have a larger dispute concerning the matter of which we might acquire jurisdiction, if embodied in some other suit, by original process or by removal, but it is to the very value or sum of the “matter iri dispute” involved in that particular suit sought to be removed, which is the jurisdictional fact that concerns us on a motion to remand. And it is evident that it cannot exceed the amount for which the court in which it is pending when the removal is asked may give judgment. Anything beyond that is not’ in dispute in that suit, evidently. In some other suit brought elsewhere or in the same court, or in the same character of suit brought under differing circumstances, the amount might be enlarged to come within our jurisdiction; but in that particular suit, brought under the peculiar circumstances belonging to it, if the amount for which the court may render judgment be $500 exactly, or less, that is the “matter in dispute,” and only that.
But there is a consideration presented by the argument that should not be overlooked here lest there be some misapplication of this ruling. It is strenuously insisted that-the jurisdiction of the federal courts can
This is a very important distinction, and in its application may have varied results, according to the nature of the statutes and the restrictions imposed by them upon the state courts; but the mistake of the argument for defendant is in applying the obvious principle to a denial of the right or duty we are under to observe the state statutes involved in this case, so far as they measure “the sum or value of the amount in dispute.” For that purpose wo must look to them, and we do not violate the principle urged upon us so earnestly in doing so. In this view of the subject it is not necessary to cite or comment upon the cases like Hyde v. Stone, 20 How. 170; Suydam v. Broadnax, 14. Pot. 67; Kelly v. Insurance Co., 3 Hughes, 449; U.S. v. Otlman, 1 Hughes, 318,—and many others like those, cited by counsel. Using the state statutes, as is done here, and only for the purpose indicated, those eases do not concern the ruling that must govern this case. The case of Hummel v. Moore, 25 Fed. Kep. 380, seems to me to overlook the distinction we here suggest, and to permit the state statutes to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal court in a larger sense, perhaps, than the cases last referred to would authorize in the principle they estab