In a suit by one of two lessors against the lessee to construe
and establish the lease and obtain accounting for both lessors,
charging fraud by lessee, the other lessor is a necessary, if not
an indispensable, party, and, for the purpose of determining
original jurisdiction of the district court through diversity of
citizenship, must be aligned with the plaintiff. P.
267 U. S.
543.
Affirmed.
Appeal from a decree of the district court dismissing a bill for
want of jurisdiction.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a bill brought against the Lehigh Valley Coal Company,
lessee of a coal mine, by John Alden Lee, who owns one-half of the
mine in his own right and as trustee for his brother. Kate P. Dixon
owns the other half. The bill seeks a construction of the lease and
of an agreement made on behalf of the plaintiff's interest on
January 21, 1913, a declaration that certain parts of the agreement
are a fraud upon the plaintiff and Kate P. Dixon, an account to the
plaintiff and Kate P. Dixon from the Coal Company, and that the
lease may be declared to be and to have been since January 21,
1913, in
Page 267 U. S. 543
full force and effect. The Coal Company is a corporation of
Pennsylvania, the plaintiff Lee a citizen and resident of New York,
and Kate P. Dixon is a citizen and resident of Pennsylvania. She is
made a defendant, the bill alleges, because of her refusal to be
made a plaintiff, "and because to make her such party plaintiff
would oust the court of jurisdiction." The bill was dismissed for
want of jurisdiction by the district court, we presume on the
ground that, so far as appeared, the arrangement of the parties was
merely a contrivance for the purpose of founding a jurisdiction
that otherwise would not exist.
Dawson v. Columbia Avenue
Saving Fund, Safe Deposit, Title & Trust Co., 197 U.
S. 178,
197 U. S.
181.
The plaintiff and appellant now argues that Kate P. Dixon is not
a necessary party. When a defendant seeks to remove a suit from a
state court to the district court, of course, he is entitled to
contend that a party joined by the plaintiff is not a necessary
party, and therefore does not make the removal impossible by
defeating the jurisdiction.
Salem Trust Co. v. Manufacturers'
Finance Co., 264 U. S. 182. It
is a different question whether the plaintiff can repudiate the
effect of his own joinder, can retain a party to the relief sought
and yet keep him on the wrong side in order to avoid the effect of
his own act. Without inquiring whether the plaintiff could have
maintained the suit alone, had he so elected and had he found it
impossible to join Kate P. Dixon, obviously she was a "necessary,"
even if not an indispensable, party.
Shields v.
Barrow, 17 How. 130,
58 U. S. 139.
It would be hard upon the Coal Company to compel it to submit to an
adjudication upon the lease upon a fraud alleged to have been
committed against both owners, and to an account, in the absence of
one of the lessors. The joinder of both is much more than a mere
form. As both are named, they must be arranged upon the side on
which they belong.
Menefee v. Frost, 123 F. 633.
Blacklock v. Small, 127 U. S. 96.
Decree affirmed.