On a direct appeal under § 238, Judicial Code, from a judgment
of the district court dismissing the bill for want of jurisdiction
on the ground that neither of the parties was a resident of that
district and that the suit was one that could only be brought in a
district in which
Page 234 U. S. 370
one of the parties resided, this Court is only concerned with
the jurisdiction of the district court as a federal court; whether
appellant is entitled to the relief sought is not a jurisdictional
question in the sense of § 238.
When the matter in controversy is of the requisite value and
diverse citizenship exists, the question is simply whether the case
is cognizable in the particular district court in which the case is
brought.
Section 57, Judicial Code, makes suits to remove any
encumbrance, lien, or cloud upon title to real or personal property
cognizable by the district court of the district in which the
property is situated regardless of residence of the parties and
process for service of the nonresident defendants by notification
outside of the district or by publication.
The provision in § 57, Judicial Code, respecting suits to remove
clouds from title embraces a suit to remove a cloud cast upon the
title by a deed or instrument which is void upon its face when such
suit is founded upon a remedial statute of the state, as well as
when resting upon established usages and practice of equity.
As construed by the highest court of Mississippi, § 975,
Rev.Code of 1871 of that state, entitles the rightful owner of real
property in that state to maintain a suit to dispel a cloud cast
upon the title thereto by an invalid deed, even though, under
applicable principles of equity, it be void on its face.
In Mississippi, as declared by its highest court, the judgment
of a special court of eminent domain may be challenged by a bill in
equity upon the ground that the condemnation is not for a public
purpose, and if other elements of federal jurisdiction are present,
the case is one to remove cloud upon title and, under § 57,
Judicial Code, the case is cognizable in the district court of the
district in which the property is situated, although neither of the
parties reside therein.
The facts, which involve the jurisdiction of the district courts
of the United States under § 57, Judicial Code, are stated in the
opinion.
Page 234 U. S. 371
MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
By a bill in equity exhibited in the district court, the
appellant seeks the annulment of three judgments of special courts
of eminent domain in Harrison, Jackson, and Hancock Counties,
Mississippi, purporting to condemn portions of its right of way in
those counties for the use of the appellee. According to the
allegations of the bill, when given the effect that must be given
to them for present purposes, the case is this: the appellant has a
fee simple title to the land constituting the right of way, and is
in possession, and the appellee is asserting a right to subject
portions of the right of way to its use under the three judgments
recently obtained. The appellant insists, for various reasons fully
set forth, that the judgments were procured and rendered in such
disregard of applicable local laws as to be clearly invalid, and
that they operate to becloud its title. The matter in controversy
exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of
$3,000, the right of way is within the district in which the bill
was filed, and the appellant and appellee are, respectively,
Kentucky and New York corporations. The prayer of the bill is that
the judgments be held null and void and the appellee enjoined from
exercising or asserting any right under them. Appearing specially
for the purpose, the appellee objected to the district court's
jurisdiction upon the ground that neither of the parties was a
resident of that district, and that the suit was not one that could
be brought in a district other than that of the residence of one of
them without the appellee's consent. The court sustained the
objection, dismissed the bill, and allowed this direct appeal under
§ 238 of the Judicial Code.
We are only concerned with the jurisdiction of the district
court as a federal court -- that is, with its power to entertain
the suit under the laws of the United States.
Page 234 U. S. 372
Fore River Shipbuilding Co. v. Hagg, 219 U.
S. 175;
United States v. Congress Construction
Co., 222 U. S. 199;
Chase v. Wetzlar, 225 U. S. 79,
225 U. S. 83.
Whether, upon the showing in the bill, the appellant is entitled to
the relief sought is not a jurisdictional question in the sense of
§ 238, and is not before us.
Smith v. McKay, 161 U.
S. 355;
Citizens' Savings & Trust Co. v.
Illinois Central Railroad Co., 205 U. S.
46,
205 U. S. 58;
Darnell v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 225 U.
S. 243.
As the matter in controversy is of the requisite value and the
parties are citizens of different states, the suit manifestly is
within the general class over which the district courts are given
jurisdiction by the Judicial Code, § 24, cl. 1, so the question for
decision is whether the suit is cognizable in the particular
district court in which it was brought.
In distributing the jurisdiction conferred in general terms upon
the district courts, the Code declares, in § 51, that,
"except as provided in the six succeeding sections, no civil
suit shall be brought in any district court against any person by
any original process or proceeding in any other district than that
whereof he is an inhabitant, but where the jurisdiction is founded
only on the fact that the action is between citizens of different
states, suit shall be brought only in the district of the residence
of either the plaintiff or the defendant."
If this section be applicable to suits which are local in their
nature, as well as to such as are transitory (as to which see
Casey v. Adams, 102 U. S. 66;
Greeley v. Lowe, 155 U. S. 58;
Ellenwood v. Marietta Chair Co., 158 U.
S. 105;
Kentucky Coal Lands Co v. Mineral
Development Co., 191 F. 899, 915), it is clear that the
district court in which the suit was brought cannot entertain it
unless one of the six succeeding sections provides otherwise or the
appellee waives its personal privilege of being sued only in the
district of its or the appellant's residence.
In re Moore,
209 U. S. 490;
Page 234 U. S. 373
Western Loan Co. v. Butte & Boston Mining Co.,
210 U. S. 368.
The appellant relies upon § 57, one of the six succeeding
sections, as adequately sustaining the jurisdiction. This section
reads as follows:
"When, in any suit commenced in any district court of the United
States to enforce any legal or equitable lien upon or claim to, or
to remove any encumbrance or lien or cloud upon the title to real
or personal property within the district where such suit is
brought, one or more of the defendants therein shall not be an
inhabitant of or found within the said district, or shall not
voluntarily appear thereto, it shall be lawful for the court to
make an order directing such absent defendant or defendants to
appear, plead, answer, or demur by a day certain to be designated,
which order shall be served on such absent defendant or defendants,
if practicable, wherever found, and also upon the person or persons
in possession or charge of said property, if any there be; or where
such personal service upon such absent defendant or defendants is
not practicable, such order shall be published in such manner as
the court may direct, not less than once a week for six consecutive
weeks. In case such absent defendants shall not appear, plead,
answer, or demur within the time so limited, or within some further
time, to be allowed by the court, in its discretion, and upon proof
of the service or publication of said order and of the performance
of the directions contained in the same, it shall be lawful for the
court to entertain jurisdiction, and proceed to the hearing and
adjudication of such suit in the same manner as if such absent
defendant had been served with process within the said district;
but said adjudication shall, as regards said absent defendant or
defendants without appearance, affect only the property which shall
have been the subject of the suit and under the jurisdiction of the
court therein, within such district, and when a part of the said
real or personal property
Page 234 U. S. 374
against which such proceedings shall be taken shall be within
another district, but within the same state, such suit may be
brought in either district in said state:
Provided,
however, That any defendant or defendants not actually
personally notified as above provided may at any time within one
year after final judgment in any suit mentioned in this section,
enter his appearance in said suit in said district court, and
thereupon the said court shall make an order setting aside the
judgment therein and permitting said defendant or defendants to
plead therein on payment by him or them of such costs as the court
shall deem just, and thereupon said suit shall be proceeded with to
final judgment according to law."
It will be perceived that this section not only plainly
contemplates that a suit "to remove any encumbrance, lien, or cloud
upon the title to real or personal property" shall be cognizable in
the district court of the district wherein the property is located,
but expressly provides for notifying the defendant by personal
service outside the district, and, if that be impracticable, by
publication. The section has been several times considered by this
Court, and, unless there be merit in an objection yet to be
noticed, the decisions leave no doubt of its applicability to the
present suit, even though both parties reside outside the district.
Greeley v. Lowe, 155 U. S. 58;
Dick v. Foraker, 155 U. S. 404;
Jellenik v. Huron Copper Co., 177 U. S.
1;
Citizens' Savings & Trust Co. v. Illinois
Central Railroad Co., 205 U. S. 46;
Chase v. Wetzlar, 225 U. S. 79.
The appellee, after asserting that each of the judgments is void
upon its face if the attack upon it in the bill is well taken,
calls attention to the general rule that a bill in equity does not
lie to cancel, as a cloud upon title, a conveyance or instrument
that is void upon its face, and then insists that § 57 must be
regarded as adopted in the light of that rule, and as not intended
to displace it, or to embrace a suit brought in opposition to it.
The difficulty
Page 234 U. S. 375
with this contention is that it seeks to make the usages of
courts of equity the sole test of what constitutes a cloud upon
title, so as to bring a suit to remove it within the operation of §
57, and disregards the bearing which the state law rightly has upon
the question. As long ago as 1839, this Court had occasion, in
Clark v.
Smith, 13 Pet.195, to consider whether a federal
court sitting in the State of Kentucky could entertain a suit to
remove a cloud from the title to real property in that state where
the right to such relief depended upon a remedial statute of the
state, and in the opinion, which fully sustained the jurisdiction,
the Court pointed out that the nature of the right was such that it
could only be enforced in a court of equity, and then said (p.
38 U. S.
203):
"Kentucky has the undoubted power to regulate and protect
individual rights to her soil, and to declare what shall form a
cloud on titles, and having so declared, the courts of the United
States, by removing such clouds, are only applying an old practice
to a new equity created by the legislature. . . . The state
legislatures certainly have no authority to prescribe the forms and
modes of proceeding in the courts of the United States, but, having
created a right and at the same time prescribed the remedy to
enforce it, if the remedy prescribed is substantially consistent
with the ordinary modes of proceeding on the chancery side of the
federal courts, no reason exists why it should not be pursued in
the same form as it is in the state courts; on the contrary,
propriety and convenience suggest that the practice should not
materially differ where titles to lands are the subjects of
investigation. And such is the constant course of the federal
courts."
The principle of that decision has been reaffirmed and applied
in many cases, one being
Reynolds v. Crawfordsville Bank,
112 U. S. 405. It
was a suit in the Circuit Court for the District of Indiana to
remove a cloud from title in virtue of a statute of that state, and
the objection was interposed that the deed sought to be
Page 234 U. S. 376
cancelled was void upon its face, and therefore afforded no
basis for such a suit in a federal court. But this Court pronounced
the objection untenable, saying (p.
112 U. S.
410):
"While, therefore, the courts of equity may have generally
adopted the rule that a deed, void upon its face, does not cast a
cloud upon the title which a court of equity would undertake to
remove, we may yet look to the legislation of the state in which
the court sits to ascertain what constitutes a cloud upon the
title, and what the state laws declare to be such, the courts of
the United States, sitting in equity, have jurisdiction to
remove."
Citing
Clark v. Smith, supra. See also Cowley v.
Northern Pacific Railroad Co., 159 U.
S. 569,
159 U. S. 582.
There are many state statutes of this type, and our decisions show
that their enforcement in the federal courts is subject to but
three restrictions: 1. the case must be within the general class
over which those courts are given jurisdiction; 2. a suit in equity
does not lie in those courts where there is a plain, adequate, and
complete remedy at law; 3. in those courts, there can be no
commingling of legal and equitable remedies, or substitution of the
latter for the former, whereby the constitutional right of trial by
jury in actions at law is defeated. Judicial Code, §§ 24 (cl. 1)
and 267;
Whitehead v. Shattuck, 138 U.
S. 146,
138 U. S. 152;
Greeley v. Lowe, 155 U. S. 58,
155 U. S. 75;
Wehrman v. Conklin, 155 U. S. 314,
155 U. S. 323;
Lawson v. United States Mining Co., 207 U. S.
1,
207 U. S. 9.
We conclude that the provision in § 57 of the Judicial Code,
respecting suits to remove clouds from title, was intended to
embrace, and does embrace, suits of that nature when founded upon
the remedial statutes of the several states, as well as when
resting upon established usages and practice in equity.
The State of Mississippi has such a statute.Code of 1906, § 550.
Although originally more restricted (Hutchinson's Code, p. 773;
Rev.Code 1857, p. 541, art. 8), it has read as follows since 1871
(Rev.Code 1871, § 975):
Page 234 U. S. 377
"When a person not the rightful owner of any real estate shall
have any conveyance or other evidence of title thereto, or shall
assert any claim or pretend to have any right or title thereto
which may cast doubt or suspicion on the title of the real owner,
such real owner may file a bill in the chancery court to have such
conveyance or other evidence or claim of title cancelled, and such
cloud, doubt, or suspicion removed from said title, whether such
real owner be in possession or not, or be threatened to be
disturbed in his possession or not, and whether the defendant be a
resident of this state or not."
While we have not been referred to any decision of the supreme
court of the state passing directly upon the question whether a
conveyance or other evidence of title void upon its face is within
the purview of this statute, the decisions of that court brought to
our attention show that it has treated the statute as embracing
conveyances described as "void," whether the invalidity was shown
upon the face of the instrument being left uncertain (
Eztelle
v. Parker, 41 Miss. 520;
Wofford v. Bailey, 57 Miss.
239;
Drysdale v. Biloxi Canning Co., 67 Miss. 534;
Preston v. Banks, 71 Miss. 601;
Wildberger v.
Puckett, 78 Miss. 650), and also that it regards the statute
as very comprehensive and materially enlarging existing equitable
remedies. In
Huntington v. Allen, 44 Miss. 654, 662, it
was said:
"The statute in reference to the removal of clouds from title
enlarges the principle upon which courts of equity were accustomed
to administer relief. It is very broad, allowing the real owner in
all cases to apply for the cancellation of a deed or other evidence
of title which casts a cloud or suspicion on his title. . . . The
terms used in the statute, expressive of the scope of the
jurisdiction,
viz., 'cloud,' 'doubt,' 'suspicion,' quite
distinctly imply that the instrument which creates them is
apparent, rather than 'real;' is 'semblance', rather than
substance; obscures, rather than
Page 234 U. S. 378
destroys or defeats."
In
Cook v. Friley, 61 Miss. 1, 4, it was further
said:
"The statute . . . not only authorizes the real owner to file
his bill to cancel a paper title, but also to remove the cloud,
doubt, or suspicion which may spring from the assertion of claim,
or pretense of right or title thereto by the defendant, who,
without any muniment of title, may assert a claim or pretend to
have right or title. The purpose was to give the real owner a
remedy against one who asserts any claim or pretends to have any
right or title to such owner's land, in analogy to the right of
action by the canon law for jactitation of marriage. The real owner
is entitled to protection against jactitation of title to the
disparagement of his real ownership. He may bring into court one
who asserts any claim or pretends to have any right or title to his
land, and require him to vindicate his claim, or submit to its
extinguishment by decree of the court."
And in
People's Bank v. West, 67 Miss. 729, 740, the
court concluded its opinion with the statement:
"We know of no line by which the jurisdiction of the court is
limited other than that prescribed by the law which confers it.
When the complainant shows a perfect title, legal or equitable, and
the title of the defendant is shown to be invalid, it is, in the
nature of things, a cloud upon the title of complainant, and should
be cancelled."
In view of these decisions, we think the statute must be
regarded as entitling the rightful owner of real property in the
state to maintain a suit to dispel a cloud cast upon his title by
an invalid deed or other instrument, even though it be one which,
when tested by applicable legal principles, is void upon its
face.
The judgments sought to be cancelled as clouds upon the
appellant's title were rendered by special courts of eminent
domain, each composed of a justice of the peace and a jury.
According to the statute controlling such proceedings (Miss.Code
1906, c. 43), the special court is not
Page 234 U. S. 379
permitted to quash or dismiss the proceeding for want of
jurisdiction or for any other reason, or to inquire whether the
applicant has a right to condemn, or whether the contemplated use
is public, but "must proceed with the condemnation" (§§ 1862, 1865,
1866), and, while an appeal lies to the circuit court, a
supersedeas is not permitted, and upon the appeal, the circuit
court is restricted, like the special court, to an ascertainment of
the compensation to be paid to the owner (§ 1871). A form of
judgment is prescribed which contains blanks for a description of
the property and a recital of the compensation awarded, and then
declares:
"Now, upon payment of the said award, applicant can enter upon
and take possession of the said property, and appropriate it to
public use, as prayed for in the application."
§ 1867. An affirmative provision to the same effect also appears
in the statute. § 1868. Considering these statutory provisions and
§ 17 of the state constitution, which declares that the question
whether the condemnation is for a public use shall be a judicial
question, the supreme court of the state holds that
"the only question which can be raised in the eminent domain
court, and the only jurisdiction confided to it, is the
jurisdiction to ascertain the amount of damage sustained by the
party whose lands are sought to be taken;"
that "a new issue, involving a new question and new pleadings,
cannot be raised in the appellate tribunal, that is to say, in the
circuit court;" that the owner
"may litigate the right to take his property at any time before
acceptance of the compensation, or before the waiver of his right
to have the question of the use judicially determined;"
that
"neither the Constitution nor the laws of the state provide any
particular tribunal in which this question shall be determined, nor
is it a matter of any particular concern in what court the question
shall be settled, provided it be determined in that form which is
capable of deciding it,"
and that the
Page 234 U. S. 380
appropriate mode of litigating the question is by a suit in
equity challenging the right of the condemnor to enter under the
judgment of the court of eminent domain.
Vinegar Bend Lumber
Co. v. Oak Grove & Georgetown Railroad Co., 89 Miss. 84.
Thus, it will be perceived that, under the law of the state as
declared by its court of last resort, the judgment of a special
court of eminent domain may be challenged by a bill in equity upon
the ground that the condemnation is not for a public purpose. This
being so, and the elements of federal jurisdiction being present,
the litigation may, of course, be had in a federal court. One of
the grounds upon which the judgments are challenged in the present
bill is that the condemnation is not for a public purpose. If this
ground be well taken, as to which we intimate no opinion, the
judgments apparently confer upon the appellee a right in the
appellant's right of way to which the appellee is not entitled.
We conclude that the suit is one to remove a cloud from title
within the meaning of § 57 of the Judicial Code, and is cognizable
in the court below, although neither of the parties resides in that
district.
Decree reversed.