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Supreme Court of the United States, 1868

West v. Aurora City

West v. Aurora City
Supreme Court of the United States · Decided February 10, 1868
73 U.S. 139; 18 L. Ed. 819; 6 Wall. 139; 1867 U.S. LEXIS 949 (United States Reports)

Counsel

Mr. T. G. Mitchell, far the plaintiff in error, , Mr. T. D. Lincoln, contra.

West v. Aurora City

Cases that cite this one

53 later published cases cite this decision. The 25 that cite it most often are listed here.

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Opinion

The CHIEF JUSTICE

delivered the opinion of the court.

' We think that the Circuit Court was clearly right in its action. The filing of the additional paragraphs did not make a new suit within the meaning of the Judicial Act. They were in the nature of defensive pleas, coupled with a prayer for injunction and general relief. This, if allowed by the code of Indiana, might give them, in some sense, the character of an original suit, but not such as could be removed from the jurisdiction of the State court. The right of removal is given only to a defendant who has not submitted himself to that jurisdiction ; not toan original plaintiff in a State court who, by resorting to that jurisdiction, has become liable under the State laws to a cross-action.

*142 And it is given only to a defendant who promptly avails himself of the right at the time of appearance, by declining to plead and filing his petition for removal.

In the case before us, West and Torrance, citizens of Ohio, voluntarily resorted, as plaintiffs, to the State court of Indiana. They were bound to know of what rights the defendants to their suit might avail themselves under the code. Submitting themselves to the jurisdiction they submitted themselves to it in its whole extent. The filing of the new paragraphs, therefore, could not make them defendants to a suit, removable on their application to the Circuit Court of the United States.

It is equally fatal to the supposed right of removal that the record presents only a fragment of a cause, unintelligible except by reference to other matters not sent up from the State court and through explanations of counsel.

A suit removable from a State court must be a suit regularly commenced by a citizen of the State in which the suit is brought, by process served upon a defendant who is a citizen of another State, and who, if he does not elect to remove, is bound to submit to the jurisdiction of the State court.

This is not such a suit, and the order of the Circuit Court remanding the cause to the State court must therefore be

Affirmed.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.