Farm Cornn v. Wardell
Farm Cornn v. Wardell
Opinion of the Court
The defendant moved the present cause to this court from the Circuit Court of the First Circuit of Hawaii, and my associate Judge Dole, on plaintiff’s motion to remand, held, ante, page 601, that the cause was properly here, inasmuch as the defendant was sued for alleged slander uttered by a Federal official acting colore officii in the performance of statutory duties. The defendant now moves to dismiss the case altogether on the ground that he is not a resident of this district where served with process but is, as the complaint itself shows, a resident of the Northern District of California.
And according to the decision just cited, the defendant, having “formally requested that this suit be placed within the jurisdiction of this court,” has “thus waived the provision of the statute” requiring a defendant to be sued in the district of his residence. To the same effect, see O’Donnell v. Atchison, etc. Ry. Co., 49 Fed. 689, 692.
The defendant’s counsel, however, contends that the plaintiff’s position'is absurd: to let the plaintiff still stay in this court, says counsel, is to override the statute requiring the defendant to be sued in a Federal court only in the district of his residence. The answer is, that the defendant had a perfect right to sue in the Territorial court — the Federal court’s jurisdiction being not exclusive, but only concurrent. See Pittsburgh, etc. Ry. Co. v. Wood, 84 N. E. 1009 (Ind. App.) as quoted in 34 Cyc. 1216, n. 1. It was because of the very fact that the Territorial court had jurisdiction that the defendant there sought to remove and not to dismiss. It is this concurrence of jurisdiction, that distinguishes the present case from that relied on by counsel, of Wabash, etc. Ry. Co. v. Brow, 164 U. S. 271, in which the cases cited in Black’s Dillon on Removal of Causes, sec. 283, n. 24, are overruled, and in which neither the Federal court nor the local court had jurisdiction of the defendant’s .person. And it must be remembered, the right of removal is purely a creature of statute: 34 Cyc. 1215-1216; and if removal under its terms does not happen to put the defendant in the same position, as to place of trial, as if sued in the Federal court in the first instance, it cannot be seen why the plaintiff should, therefore, be deprived of his right to resort to a Territorial cou'rt of concurrent jurisdiction on the one hand, or on the other why the defendant should in excess of the removal remedy, be given the advantage of
Let the defendant’s motion to dismiss be denied..
Reference
- Full Case Name
- FARM CORNN v. JUSTUS S. WARDELL
- Status
- Published