Where a plaintiff asserts as his cause of action a claim which
he cannot be legally permitted to sustain by evidence, a mere
ad damnum clause will not confer jurisdiction on the
circuit court, but the court, on motion or demurrer or of its own
motion, may dismiss the suit.
In the circumstances disclosed by the plaintiff's declaration,
and in the certificates of the trial judge, the defendant company,
though liable in a court of competent jurisdiction for the other
claims asserted, cannot be held for the amount of wages or profits
which the plaintiff suggests he might have earned had he reached
Dawson City.
This was an action originally brought in December, 1897, in the
Superior Court of the State of Washington for King County, by
Donald Morrison against the North American Transportation &
Trading Company, and subsequently, on petition of the defendant
company, removed to the Circuit Court of the United States for the
District of Washington. To the declaration, containing several
counts, the defendant demurred. The demurrer was overruled, and the
cause was tried before the district judge and a jury. After verdict
and judgment in favor of the plaintiff, the district judge
certified the following statement of facts and questions of
jurisdiction to this Court:
"I, C. H. Hanford, District Judge, presiding in the circuit
court aforesaid, and the judge before whom the above-entitled cause
was tried, do now, on the 29th day of December, 1898, being the
December term at which the judgment and verdict were entered
herein, certify as follows:"
"Morrison, the plaintiff, alleging himself to be a citizen and
resident of the State of Minnesota, began this action in the
Superior Court of King County, State of Washington, against the
defendant, alleging it to be a corporation organized and
Page 178 U. S. 263
existing under the laws of the State of Illinois and engaged in
business in the State of Washington. The suit was upon eight causes
of action, the first on plaintiff's own account, the other on
account of seven alleged assignors of plaintiff. The citizenship of
these assignors was nowhere alleged."
"Defendant removed the case to this court on the ground of
diversity of citizenship between it and plaintiff Morrison, and the
involving of a sum exceeding $2,000, exclusive of interest and
costs. After removal, defendant demurred to each cause of action in
the complaint as not sufficient to constitute a cause of action,
and, as to the last seven causes of action, on the additional
ground that the court had no jurisdiction to hear it, and this was
overruled, with exception to defendant. Issue was then joined, and,
after two trials, judgment was entered as now complained of in
error in the sum of $2,119.50. After the verdict and before
judgment, defendant moved to dismiss or remand the whole cause and
each cause of action on the ground that as to the first cause of
action it did not involve $2,000, exclusive of interest and costs,
and as to the second and each subsequent cause of action -- that is
to say, as to the assigned causes of action -- that each of these
did not involve $2,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and
because also it did not appear that proper diversity of citizenship
existed at the time of the commencement of the action, or at the
time of its removal, between the assignors of plaintiff and
defendant so as to confer jurisdiction upon the federal court,
which said motion to dismiss and remand was denied, with exception
to defendant."
"The original complaint shows that the aggregate sum sued for by
Morrison was $18,173.50, divided, as already stated, into eight
causes of action. The suit was upon eight contracts of carriage,
between defendant as a carrier and plaintiff and his seven
assignors, from Seattle to Dawson City by way of St. Michaels and
the Yukon River, which contracts were alleged to have been broken
by the carrier by failure and refusal to transport the passengers
farther than Fort Yukon on the river."
"The first cause of action -- that of plaintiff himself --
alleged himself to be a citizen and a resident of Minnesota and
Page 178 U. S. 264
defendant a corporation organized and existing under the laws of
the State of Illinois. The contract was alleged to have been made
at Seattle on the 30th day of July, 1897, and the agreed date of
the delivery of the plaintiff at Dawson by the carrier was alleged
to be September 15, 1897, and this suit was brought on the 17th day
of November, 1897. On the breach of the contract at Fort Yukon,
plaintiff alleged himself compelled to return to Seattle. The
damages claimed by him were as follows: (a) the price of his ticket
from Seattle to Dawson City, $200; (b) $72.50, returning to Seattle
after the breach of contract at Fort Yukon; (c) expense of one
dollar a day and loss of time at three dollars a day at Seattle
since his return there, the 18th day of October, 1897; (d) three
dollars a day from the 30th day of July, 1897, which he could have
earned if he had not started on the journey at all; (e) fifteen
dollars a day which he could have earned for a year at Dawson after
the 15th day of September, 1897; (f) lost baggage, $29.50; the
total prayer of this cause of action being $2,301.75."
"The second and subsequent causes of action, being the assigned
causes, arose on exactly similar contracts of carriage. The
citizenship of the respective assignors was not averred. The
damages claimed were exactly the same as those claimed by plaintiff
himself, excepting that none of the assignors claimed the item of
lost baggage, and that the item of cost in returning from Fort
Yukon to Seattle was as low as $61.50 in some instances, and as
high as $103.25 in others. The lowest sum claimed by any of the
assignors as his total damage was $2,261.25, and the highest
claimed was $2,303.25."
"Neither in the original nor the assigned causes of action was
it alleged that any of these passengers had ever lived in Dawson
before, had any previous engagement or business there, or any
promise of employment, the allegation in each cause of action as to
the passenger's damage in this respect being that"
"he could have obtained employment and engaged in business by
him competent to perform and transact at or about said Dawson City,
and thereby secured wages and profits at the rate of fifteen
dollars per day continuously from September 15, 1897, for the
period of the year thence next ensuing,"
"and that"
"he
Page 178 U. S. 265
has wholly lost all of said employment and time, and all of said
wages and profits, to his damage in the sum of $2,000."
"It was not alleged what, if any, occupation either plaintiff or
any of his assignors had before departure on the journey, nor was
it alleged what occupation was expected at the point of
destination, or that any expected occupation was communicated to
the defendant."
"Now, therefore, I do certify to the Supreme Court the following
question of jurisdiction, as follows:"
"Whether the motions to dismiss and to remand should have been
granted because, at the time of removal to this court, the cause
was one of which this court could not take jurisdiction -- that is
to say, whether --"
"(a) In each of the causes of action, the sum or value of the
matter actually in dispute, as shown in the pleadings, was less
than two thousand dollars, exclusive of interest and costs and a
controversy was involved substantially within the jurisdiction of
this Court, and whether --"
"(b) If the foregoing be answered in the affirmative, the
amounts claimed in the assigned causes of action could be united to
that in the first to make up the jurisdictional amount, the
citizenship of the assignors not being alleged, and whether --"
"(c) Supposing the jurisdictional amount was sufficient in each
cause of action, the case was even then removable to this court
when the necessary diversity of citizenship was alleged only in the
first cause of action, and was not alleged in those assigned."
MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit by Donald Morrison, alleging himself to be a
citizen of the State of Minnesota, against the North American
Page 178 U. S. 266
Transportation & Trading Company, a corporation of the State
of Illinois, for damages arising out of a breach of a contract
whereby the transportation company had agreed to carry the
plaintiff and his baggage from Seattle in the State of Washington
to Dawson City in the Northwest Territory, in the Dominion of
Canada.
It is conceded that the defendant company failed, without
sufficient excuse, to fulfill its engagement, and the question upon
which the jurisdiction of the court below depended is as to the
nature and amount of the damages to which the plaintiff is
entitled. The allegations in the complaint in that respect were
first, the sum paid by the plaintiff as a fare being $200; second,
the expenses caused by having to return to Seattle, amounting to
$72.50; third, the wages which he could and would have earned at
Seattle if he had not proceeded upon the attempted journey, being
wages at the rate of three dollars per day during all the time
intervening between August 3, 1897, and November 17, 1897,
amounting to about $320; fourth, the loss of a certain portion of
plaintiff's baggage, amounting to $29.25; and, fifth, the loss
occasioned plaintiff by the defendant's failure to transport him to
Dawson City,
"where the plaintiff could have obtained employment and engaged
in business which he was competent to perform and transact at or
about Dawson City and thereby have secured wages and profits at the
rate of fifteen dollars per day continuously from September 15,
1897, for the period of the year next ensuing, . . . by reason
whereof there is due and owing the plaintiff from the defendant by
reason of the premises, for said expenditures, outlay, and damages,
the sum of two thousand three hundred and one dollars and
seventy-five cents."
It was obvious on the face of the plaintiff's complaint that, if
he was not entitled to recover the money which he alleged, "he
could have earned and secured by obtaining employment and engaging
in business at or about Dawson City" the amount necessary to give
the circuit court jurisdiction was not involved.
While it has sometimes been said that it is the amount claimed
by the plaintiff in his declaration that brings his case within the
jurisdiction of the circuit court, that was in suits for
Page 178 U. S. 267
unliquidated damages, in which the amount which the plaintiff
was entitled to recover was a question for the jury; an inspection
of the declaration did not disclose and could not disclose but that
the plaintiff was entitled to recover the amount claimed, and
hence, even if the jury found a verdict in a sum less than the
jurisdictional amount, the jurisdiction of the court would not be
defeated.
Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U.
S. 550;
Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S.
58,
165 U. S.
89.
But where the plaintiff asserts, as his cause of action, a claim
which he cannot be legally permitted to sustain by evidence, a mere
ad damnum clause will not confer jurisdiction on the
circuit court, but the court, on motion or demurrer or of its own
motion, may dismiss the suit. And such, we think, was the present
case.
We do not consider it necessary to enter upon a discussion of
the rule that a person is not to be held responsible in damages for
the remote consequences of every negligent act, but only for those
which are proximate or natural, and shall content ourselves by
stating our conclusion that, in the circumstances disclosed by the
plaintiff's declaration and in the certificate of the trial judge,
the defendant company, though liable in a court of competent
jurisdiction for the other claims asserted, cannot be held for the
amount of wages or profits which the plaintiff suggests he might
have earned had he reached Dawson City.
In the district judge's certificate, it is stated that the
plaintiff did not allege that he had ever lived in Dawson City
before, or had any previous engagement or business there or any
promise of employment; that it was not alleged what, if any,
occupation the plaintiff had before his departure on the journey,
nor what occupation was expected at the point of destination, or
that any expected occupation or employment was communicated to the
defendant company.
The plaintiff was traveling to a land of promise, hoping to
there procure some occupation, he knew not what, or to engage in
some business, he knew not what. The result of such an adventure
cannot be foretold, and the plaintiff's anticipations afford no
safe ground on which to base a claim for damages.
If, then, the plaintiff, in respect to his own claim, did
not
Page 178 U. S. 268
disclose a case of which the circuit court had jurisdiction, did
he overcome that difficulty by the additional counts in which he
alleged himself to be the assignee of several other voyagers who
had suffered loss and damages similar to those claimed by him on
his own behalf? The citizenship of the assignors was not alleged,
and the greater portion of the respective claims consisted of
matter which we have held in reference to plaintiff's own claim to
be too remote and uncertain to be allowed.
It is somewhat uncertain, upon the facts alleged in the
declaration and those stated to us in the certificate of the
district judge, whether, if all the claims, as well those assigned
as those held by the plaintiff in his own right, omitting those
which we have held to be too remote and uncertain, were aggregated,
they would reach the necessary jurisdictional amount. But however
that may be, as it is not alleged that the assignors could have
themselves prosecuted suit in the circuit court, it is the settled
construction of the statutes of the United States that the suit
cannot maintain in favor of the assignee.
Sere v. Pitot,
6 Cranch 332, was an action commenced to foreclose a mortgage given
by a citizen of Louisiana to another citizen of the same state. The
language of the Judiciary Act of 1789 was as follows:
"Nor shall any district or circuit court have cognizance of any
suit to recover the contents of any promissory note or other chose
in action in favor of an assignee unless a suit might have been
prosecuted in such court to recover the said contents if no
assignment had been made."
1 Stat. 78. The plaintiff was the general assignee in insolvency
of the mortgagor, and was an alien, and it was said by Chief
Justice Marshall, delivering the opinion of the Court:
"Without doubt, assignable paper, being the chose in action most
usually transferred, was in the mind of the legislature when the
law was framed, and the words of the provision are therefore best
adapted to that class of assignments. But there is no reason to
believe that the legislature was not equally disposed to except
from the jurisdiction of the federal courts those who could sue in
virtue of equitable assignments and those who could sue in virtue
of legal assignments. The assignee of all the open accounts of a
merchant might, under certain circumstances, be
Page 178 U. S. 269
permitted to sue in equity in his own name, and there would be
as much reason to exclude him from the federal courts as to exclude
the same person when the assignee of a particular note. The term
'other chose in action' is broad enough to comprehend either case,
and the word 'contents' is too ambiguous in its import to restrain
that general term. The 'contents' of a note are the sum it shows to
be due, and the same may, without much violence to language, be
said of an account."
And the same construction was put upon the language of the Act
of August 13, 1888, c. 866, 25 Stat. 433.
Mexican National
Railroad v. Davidson, 157 U. S. 201.
We do not think that it was competent for the plaintiff to add
to his own cause of action in order to obtain jurisdiction in the
circuit court, claims assigned by those whose citizenship and
residence did not appear either in the complaint or in the petition
for removal. As, however, the plaintiff brought his action in the
state court, where he was entitled to join the assigned claims with
his own, and as the case was removed into the federal court at the
instance of the defendant company, whose motion to remand the case
we are now obliged to sustain, we impose the costs in the circuit
court and in this Court on the North American Transportation &
Trading Company, the plaintiff in error.
These views render it needless to answer severally the questions
certified.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Circuit Court is reversed,
and the cause is remanded to that court, with directions to remand
the cause to the state court.
