A circuit court of the United States having, by removal from a
state court by reason of citizenship of the parties, properly
acquired jurisdiction of an action against a tenant for the
possession of land, is not ousted of it by admitting as
codefendant, under the provisions of a state statute, his landlord,
a citizen of the same state as the plaintiff.
Section 914 of the Revised Statutes, which requires the forms
and modes of proceeding in civil causes other than equity and
admiralty causes in circuit and district courts to conform as near
as may be to the forms and modes of proceeding existing at the time
in like causes in the courts of record in the state within which
the circuit or district courts are held, does not require the
courts of the United States, by adopting the forms and modes of the
state courts, to divest themselves of a jurisdiction once lawfully
acquired under an act of Congress.
In ejectment against a tenant in possession of real estate whose
landlord is a citizen of another state, the plaintiff has a real
and substantial "controversy" with the defendant within the meaning
of the act for removal of causes from state courts which continues
after his landlord is summoned in and becomes a party for the
purpose of protecting his own interests.
The plaintiffs in error, who were plaintiffs below, brought
their action in the Circuit Court of De Kalb County, Missouri at
the April term, 1883, against George R. Oaks for the recovery of
the possession of certain lands in that county unlawfully withheld
by him, as they alleged, and for damages therefor, and for rents
and profits. The defendant, a citizen of Missouri, having been
served with process, the plaintiffs, who were citizens of
Pennsylvania, filed their petition for the removal of the cause to
the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western Division of
the Western District of Missouri on the ground that the controversy
in said suit was between citizens of different states, the matter
and amount in dispute being in excess of the sum or value of $500.
The prayer of the petition was granted, the accompanying bond being
approved, and the cause was removed.
Page 117 U. S. 237
Afterwards, on June 16, 1884, the defendant Oaks filed his
answer, in which he denied all the allegations of the plaintiffs'
complaint, except as expressly admitted, and in addition set up
that at the time of the commencement of the action he was in the
possession of the premises as the tenant, from year to year, of one
Maria Zeidler, wife of John Zeidler, who was the owner thereof, and
to whom he had paid the rents due on account thereof, and asked
that the said Maria and John Zeidler be made parties defendant to
the suit according to the form of the statute of Missouri in such
cases provided. Thereupon the Zeidlers also appeared and asked to
be let in as defendants and for leave to plead, and it was so
ordered by the court, with leave to file a motion to remand the
cause to the state court in thirty days. Such a motion was
accordingly made on the ground that Maria Zeidler and John Zeidler,
her husband, were both citizens of Pennsylvania; that the defendant
Oaks made no claim or demand to the premises in controversy
otherwise than as the tenant of Maria Zeidler, and that
consequently the said suit did not really and substantially involve
a dispute or controversy properly within the jurisdiction of the
circuit court of the United States.
Pending this motion, the plaintiffs moved the court to rescind
the order making Maria and John Zeidler parties. This motion to
rescind was denied and the motion of the defendants to remand the
cause was granted. To reverse these rulings is the object of this
writ of error.
MR. JUSTICE MATTHEWS delivered the opinion of the Court. After
stating the case as above reported, he continued:
That the cause when removed from the state to the circuit court
was rightly removed is not denied. Under the removal act of 1875,
the plaintiffs were authorized to remove their action,
Page 117 U. S. 238
although brought by them in the first place in the state court,
into the circuit court of the United States, they being citizens of
Pennsylvania and the defendant a citizen of Missouri and an
inhabitant of the district.
The ground on which the suit was remanded was that it
subsequently appeared that it did not really and substantially
involve a controversy properly within the jurisdiction of the
circuit court according to the sense of the 5th section of the Act
of March 3, 1875. This conclusion, it is supposed, is justified by
the fact that, the defendant Oaks being merely a tenant of Maria
Zeidler, who claimed title to the premises in dispute, had no real
interest in the controversy and was a merely nominal party, his
landlord being the real party in interest, entitled to be let in to
defend as a party to the record and bound by law to maintain his
tenant's possession, so that the real and substantial controversy
involved in and to be determined by the action was not between the
plaintiffs and Oaks, but between them and the Zeidlers, and the
latter being citizens of the same state with the plaintiffs, it
became apparent that the cause was not properly within the
jurisdiction of the circuit court.
The statutes of Missouri provide that
"Every tenant on whom a summons in an action to recover the
tenements held by him shall be served shall forthwith give notice
thereof to the person, or agent of the person, of whom such tenant
holds under the penalty of forfeiting to such person the value of
three years' rent of the premises occupied by him."
1 Rev.Stat.Missouri, 1879, 514, § 3071. And by § 2244 that "The
person from or through whom the defendant claims title to the
premises may, on motion, be made a codefendant." 1
Rev.Stat.Missouri 374. And it is claimed that under the decisions
of the supreme court of the state, this right of the owner or
warrantor of the title to be let in as a party to defend does not
rest in the discretion of the court, but is absolute.
Sutton v.
Casseleggi, 77 Mo. 397, 408. It is assumed that the statute is
equally obligatory upon the courts of the United States.
But this is a mistake. It is true that by Rev.Stat. § 914, it is
required that
"The practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding in
civil causes, other than equity and admiralty
Page 117 U. S. 239
causes, in the circuit and district courts shall conform as near
as may be to the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of
proceeding existing at the time in like causes in the courts of
record of the state within which such circuit or district courts
are held, any rule of court to the contrary notwithstanding,"
but "the conformity is required," as was said by this Court in
Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co. v. Horst,
93 U. S. 291,
93 U. S.
300,
"to be 'as near as may be,' not as near as may be
possible, or as near as may be
practicable. This
indefiniteness may have been suggested by a purpose. It devolved
upon the judges to be affected the duty of construing and deciding,
and gave them the power to reject, as Congress doubtless expected
they would do, any subordinate provision in such state statutes
which in their judgment would unwisely encumber the administration
of the law or tend to defeat the ends of justice in their
tribunals."
Certainly it was not intended that these statutes were to be
adopted with the effect of defeating the jurisdiction of the courts
of the United States once lawfully attached under an act of
Congress.
Stewart v. Dunham, 115 U. S.
61.
It is equally an error to assume that the plaintiffs had not a
substantial and real controversy with the defendant Oaks, and that
their controversy was solely with the Zeidlers. The object and
purpose of the action was to recover possession of the real estate
in the visible and actual occupation of Oaks, and not otherwise in
the possession of his landlord than by force of his tenancy. The
Zeidlers were not citizens of Missouri nor residents of the
district, and could not have been sued by the plaintiffs. The
latter were not bound to look beyond the person who, by his
occupation of the disputed premises, was holding adversely to their
claim, and if the Zeidlers were permitted to defend, it was for
their own interest, and not because they were either necessary or
indispensable parties to the proceeding in which the plaintiffs
were the actors. The controversy, so far as the Zeidlers were
interested in it, was of their own seeking, and as their rights
could not be concluded by a judgment against the tenant, they were
not in a position to insist that the plaintiffs should forego their
legal right to proceed against the
Page 117 U. S. 240
most convenient defendant. The landlord could defend the
possession of the tenant, as it was his right and duty to do on
notice of the action, but he could do so as well in the name of the
tenant as in his own. At any rate, the plaintiffs had a right to
eject the defendant, who actually and unlawfully withheld from them
possession of their lands, and it is not correct to say that the
controversy in law is with the landlord in virtue of whose claim of
title the wrongful possession is maintained. Much less can the
plaintiff's right to prosecute his action in the courts of the
United States, once vested, be defeated by imposing upon him an
adversary against whom he cannot maintain the jurisdiction of these
tribunals.
Undoubtedly it was the duty of the circuit court in this case to
give effect to the statute of Missouri as far as it could, but not
at the expense of its jurisdiction. "It must be held," as was said
in
Erstein v. Rothschild, 22 F. 61, 64,
"that the body of the local law thus adopted in the general must
be considered in the courts of the United States in the light of
their own system of jurisprudence, as defined by their own
constitution as tribunals and of other acts of Congress on the same
subject. It can hardly be supposed that it was the intent of this
legislation to place the courts of the United States in each state,
in reference to their own practice and procedure, upon the footing
merely of subordinate state courts, required to look from time to
time to the supreme court of the state for authoritative rules for
their guidance in those details. To do so would be, in many cases,
to trench, in important particulars not easy to foresee, upon
substantial rights, protected by the peculiar Constitution of the
federal judiciary, and which might seriously affect, in cases
easily supposed, the proper correlation and independence of the two
systems of federal and state judicial tribunals."
It was quite proper, therefore, for the circuit court to admit
the landlord as a party, for the purpose of defending his tenant's
possession, and through that, his own title, and to this end he
might not only be permitted to appear as a party to the record and
codefendant but to control the defense as
dominus litis,
raising and conducting such issues as his own rights and
Page 117 U. S. 241
interests might dictate. And this need not arrest or interfere
with the jurisdiction of the court, already established by the
plaintiffs against the tenant in possession, for such proceedings
should be treated as incidental to the jurisdiction thus acquired,
and auxiliary to it, as in like cases, in equity, one interested in
the subject matter, though a stranger to the litigation, may be
allowed to intervene
pro interesse suo. Krippendorf v.
Hyde, 110 U. S. 276.
In this view, the circuit court was right in admitting the
Zeidlers as codefendants, but there was error in remanding the
cause to the state court. For this error,
The judgment complained of is reversed, and the cause is
remanded to the circuit court with directions to proceed in the
action according to law.
