1. In cases where the judicial power of the United States can be
applied only because they involve controversies between citizens of
different states, it rests with Congress to determine at what time
and upon what conditions the power may be invoked -- whether
originally in the federal court or after suit brought in the state
court, and in the latter case, at what stage of the proceedings --
whether before issue or trial by removal to a federal court, or
after judgment upon appeal or writ of error.
2. As the Constitution imposes no limitation upon the class of
cases involving controversies between citizens of different states,
to which the judicial power of the United States may be extended,
Congress may provide for bringing, at the option of either of the
parties, all such controversies within the jurisdiction of the
federal judiciary.
3. The Act of Congress of March l, 1867, 14 Stat. 558, in
authorizing and requiring the removal to the circuit court of the
United States of a suit pending or afterwards brought in any state
court involving a controversy between a citizen of the state where
the suit is brought and a citizen of another state, thereby invests
the circuit court with jurisdiction to pass upon and determine the
controversy when the removal is made, though that court could not
have taken original cognizance of the case.
4. A suit to annul a will as a muniment of title, and to
restrain the enforcement of a decree admitting it to probate, is,
in essential particulars, a suit in equity, and if by the law
obtaining in a state, customary or statutory, such a suit can be
maintained in one of its courts, whatever designation that court
may bear, it may be maintained by original process in the circuit
court of the United States, if the parties are citizens of
different states.
This is an action in form to annul an alleged will of Daniel
Clark, the father of the plaintiff in error, dated on the 13th of
July, 1813, and to recall the decree of the court by which it was
probated. It was brought in the Second District Court for the
Parish of Orleans, which, under the laws of Louisiana, is invested
with jurisdiction over the estates of deceased persons, and of
appointments necessary in the course of their administration.
The petition sets forth, that on the 18th of January, 1855, the
plaintiff in error applied to that court for the probate of the
alleged will, and that, by decree of the supreme court of
Page 92 U. S. 11
the state, the alleged will was recognized as the last will and
testament of the said Daniel Clark, and was ordered to be recorded
and executed as such; that this decree of probate was obtained
ex parte, and by its terms authorized any person at any
time, who might desire to do so, to contest the will and its
probate in a direct action, or as a means of defense by way of
answer or exception, whenever the will should be set up as a
muniment of title; that the plaintiff in error subsequently
commenced several suits against the petitioners in the circuit
court of the United States to recover sundry tracts of land and
properties of great value, situated in the parish of Orleans and
elsewhere, in which they are interested, setting up the alleged
will as probated as a muniment of title, and claiming under the
same as instituted heir of the testator, and that the petitioners
are unable to contest the validity of the alleged will so long as
the decree of probate remains unrecalled. The petitioners then
proceed to set forth the grounds upon which they ask for a
revocation of the will and the recalling of the decree of probate,
these being substantially the falsity and insufficiency of the
testimony upon which the will was admitted to probate, and the
status of the plaintiff in error, incapacitating her to inherit or
take by last will from the decedent.
A citation having been issued upon the petition, and served upon
the plaintiff in error, she applied in proper form, with a tender
of the necessary bond, for removal of the cause to the Circuit
Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana, under the
twelfth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, on the ground that
she was a citizen of New York, and the petitioners were citizens of
Louisiana. The court denied the application, for the alleged reason
that, as she had made herself a party to the proceedings in the
court relative to the settlement of Clark's succession by appearing
for the probate of the will, she could not now avoid the
jurisdiction when the attempt was made to set aside and annul the
order of probate which she had obtained. The court, however, went
on to say in its opinion that the federal court could not take
jurisdiction of a controversy having for its object the annulment
of a decree probating a will.
The plaintiff in error then applied for a removal of the
action
Page 92 U. S. 12
under the Act of March 2, 1867, on the ground, that, from
prejudice and local influence, she would not be able to obtain
justice in the state court, accompanying the application with the
affidavit and bond required by the statute. This application was
also denied, the court resting its decision on the alleged ground
that the federal tribunal could not take jurisdiction of the
subject matter of the controversy.
Other parties having intervened, the applications were renewed,
and again denied. An answer was then filed by the plaintiff in
error, denying generally the allegations of the petition except as
to the probate of the will, and interposing a plea of prescription.
Subsequently a further plea was filed, to the effect that the
several matters alleged as to the status of the plaintiff in error
had been the subject of judicial inquiry in the federal courts, and
been there adjudged in her favor. Upon the hearing a decree was
entered, annulling the will, and revoking its probate. The supreme
court of the state having affirmed this decree, this writ of error
was sued out.
The Act of March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 558, is as follows:
"That where a suit is now pending, or may hereafter be brought,
in any state court in which there is controversy between a citizen
of the state in which the suit is brought and a citizen of another
state, and the matter in dispute exceeds the sum of $500 exclusive
of costs, such citizen of another state, whether he be plaintiff or
defendant, if he will make and file in such state court an
affidavit stating that he has reason to and does believe that from
prejudice or local influence he will not be able to obtain justice
in such state court, may at any time before final hearing or trial
of the suit, file a petition in such state court for the removal of
the suit into the next circuit court of the United States to be
held in the district where the suit is pending, and offer good and
sufficient surety for his entering in such court, on the first day
of its session, copies of all process, pleadings, depositions,
testimony, and other proceedings in said suit, and doing such other
appropriate acts as, by the act to which this act is amendatory,
are required to be done upon the removal of a suit into the United
States court, and it shall be thereupon the duty of the state court
to accept the surety, and proceed no further in the suit, and, the
said copies being entered as aforesaid in such court of the United
States, the suit shall there proceed in the same manner as if it
had been brought there by
Page 92 U. S. 13
original process, and all the provisions of the act to which
this act is amendatory, respecting any bail, attachment,
injunction, or other restraining process, and respecting any bond
of indemnity or other obligation given upon the issuing or granting
of any attachment, injunction, or other restraining process, shall
apply with like force and effect in all respects to similar
matters, process, or things in the suits for the removal of which
this act provides. "
Page 92 U. S. 17
MR. JUSTICE FIELD, after stating the case, delivered the opinion
of the Court.
In the view we take of the application of the plaintiff in error
to remove the cause to the federal court, no other question than
the one raised upon that application is open for our consideration.
If the application should have been granted, the subsequent
proceedings were without validity, and no useful purpose would be
subserved by an examination of the merits of the defense upon the
supposition that the state court rightfully retained its original
jurisdiction.
The action is in form to annul the alleged will of 1813 of
Daniel Clark and to recall the decree by which it was probated, but
as the petitioners are not heirs of Clark nor legatees nor next of
kin, and do not ask to be substituted in place of the plaintiff in
error, the action cannot be treated as properly instituted for the
revocation of the probate, but must be treated as brought against
the devisee by strangers to the estate to annul the will as a
muniment of title, and to restrain the enforcement of the decree by
which its validity was established, so far as it affects their
property. It is in fact an action between parties, and the question
for determination is whether the federal court can take
jurisdiction of an action brought for the object mentioned between
citizens of different states upon its removal from a state court.
The Constitution declares that the judicial power of the United
States shall extend to "controversies between citizens of different
states," as well as to cases arising under the Constitution,
treaties, and laws of the United States, but the conditions upon
which the power shall be exercised, except so far as the original
or appellate character of the jurisdiction is designated in the
Constitution, are matters of legislative direction. Some cases
there are, it is true, in which, from their nature, the judicial
power of the United States, when invoked, is exclusive of all state
authority. Such are cases in which the United States are parties --
cases of
Page 92 U. S. 18
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and cases for the
enforcement of rights of inventors and authors under the laws of
Congress.
The Moses
Taylor, 4 Wall. 429;
Railway Co. v.
Whitton, 13 Wall. 288. But in cases where the
judicial power of the United States can be applied only because
they involve controversies between citizens of different states, it
rests entirely with Congress to determine at what time the power
may be invoked, and upon what conditions -- whether originally in
the federal court, or after suit brought in the state court, and in
the latter case, at what stage of the proceedings -- whether before
issue or trial by removal to a federal court, or after judgment
upon appeal or writ of error. The Judiciary Act of 1789, in the
distribution of jurisdiction to the federal courts, proceeded upon
this theory. It declared that the circuit courts should have
original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several
states, of all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity,
involving a specified sum or value, where the suits were between
citizens of the state in which they were brought and citizens of
other states; and it provided that suits of that character by
citizens of the state in which they were brought might be
transferred, upon application of the defendants, made at the time
of entering their appearance, if accompanied with sufficient
security for subsequent proceedings in the federal court. The
validity of this legislation is not open to serious question, and
the provisions adopted have been recognized and followed with
scarcely an exception by the federal and state courts since the
establishment of the government. But the limitation of the original
jurisdiction of the federal court, and of the right of removal from
a state court, to a class of cases between citizens of different
states involving a designated amount, and brought by or against
resident citizens of the state, was only a matter of legislative
discretion. The Constitution imposes no limitation upon the class
of cases involving controversies between citizens of different
states, to which the judicial power of the United States may be
extended; and Congress may therefore lawfully provide for bringing,
at the option of either of the parties, all such controversies
within the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary.
As we have had occasion to observe in previous cases, the
Page 92 U. S. 19
provision of the Constitution, extending the judicial power of
the United States to controversies between citizens of different
states, had its existence in the impression that state attachments
and state prejudices might affect injuriously the regular
administration of justice in the state courts. It was originally
supposed that adequate protection against such influences was
secured by allowing to the plaintiff an election of courts before
suit; and when the suit was brought in a state court, a like
election to the defendant afterwards.
Railway Co. v.
Whitton, 13 Wall. 289. But the experience of
parties immediately after the late war, which powerfully excited
the people of different states, and in many instances engendered
bitter enmities, satisfied Congress that further legislation was
required fully to protect litigants against influences of that
character. It therefore provided by the Act of March 2, 1867, 14
Stat. 558, greater facilities for the removal of cases involving
controversies between citizens of different states from a state
court to a federal court, when it appeared that such influences
existed. That act declared, that where a suit was then pending, or
should afterwards be brought in any state court, in which there was
a controversy between a citizen of the state in which the suit was
brought and a citizen of another state, and the matter in dispute
exceeded the sum of $500, exclusive of costs, such citizen of
another state, whether plaintiff or defendant, upon making and
filing in the state court an affidavit that he had reason to
believe, and did believe, that from prejudice or local influence he
would not be able to obtain justice in the state court, might, at
any time before final hearing or trial of the suit, obtain a
removal of the case into the circuit court of the United States,
upon petition for that purpose, and the production of sufficient
security for subsequent proceedings in the federal court. This act
covered every possible case involving controversies between
citizens of the state where the suit was brought and citizens of
other states, if the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs,
exceeded the sum of $500. It mattered not whether the suit was
brought in a state court of limited or general jurisdiction. The
only test was, did it involve a controversy between citizens of the
state and citizens of other states? and did the matter in dispute
exceed a specified
Page 92 U. S. 20
amount? And a controversy was involved in the sense of the
statute whenever any property or claim of the parties, capable of
pecuniary estimation, was the subject of the litigation, and was
presented by the pleadings for judicial determination.
With these provisions in force, we are clearly of opinion that
the state court of Louisiana erred in refusing to transfer the case
to the circuit court of the United States upon the application of
the plaintiff in error. If the federal court had, by no previous
act, jurisdiction to pass upon and determine the controversy
existing between the parties in the Parish Court of Orleans, it was
invested with the necessary jurisdiction by this act itself so soon
as the case was transferred. In authorizing and requiring the
transfer of cases involving particular controversies from a state
court to a federal court, the statute thereby clothed the latter
court with all the authority essential for the complete
adjudication of the controversies, even though it should be
admitted that that court could not have taken original cognizance
of the cases. The language used in
Smith v. Rines, cited
from the 2d of Sumner's Reports in support of the position that
such cases are only liable to removal from the state to the circuit
court as might have been brought before the circuit court by
original process, applied only to the law as it then stood. No case
could then be transferred from a state court to a federal court on
account of the citizenship of the parties which could not
originally have been brought in the circuit court.
But the admission supposed is not required in this case. The
suit in the parish court is not a proceeding to establish a will,
but to annul it as a muniment of title and to limit the operation
of the decree admitting it to probate. It is, in all essential
particulars, a suit for equitable relief -- to cancel an instrument
alleged to be void, and to restrain the enforcement of a decree
alleged to have been obtained upon false and insufficient
testimony. There are no separate equity courts in Louisiana, and
suits for special relief of the nature here sought are not there
designated suits in equity. But they are nonetheless essentially
such suits, and if by the law obtaining in the state, customary or
statutory, they can be maintained in a state court, whatever
designation that court may bear, we think they may
Page 92 U. S. 21
be maintained by original process in a federal court, where the
parties are, on the one side, citizens of Louisiana, and, on the
other, citizens of other states.
Nor is there anything in the decisions of this Court in the case
of
Gaines v. New Orleans, reported in the 6th of Wallace,
or in the case of
Broderick's Will, reported in the 21st
of Wallace, which militates against these views. In
Gaines v.
New Orleans, this Court only held that the probate could not
be collaterally attacked, and that, until revoked, it was
conclusive of the existence of the will and its contents. There is
no intimation given that a direct action to annul the will and
restrain a decree admitting it to probate might not be maintained
in a federal as well as in a state court if jurisdiction of the
parties was once rightfully obtained.
In the case of
Broderick's Will, the doctrine is
approved, which is established both in England and in this country,
that by the general jurisdiction of courts of equity, independent
of statutes, a bill will not lie to set aside a will or its
probate, and whatever the cause of the establishment of this
doctrine originally, there is ample reason for its maintenance in
this country, from the full jurisdiction over the subject of wills
vested in the probate courts and the revisory power over their
adjudications in the appellate courts. But that such jurisdiction
may be vested in the state courts of equity by statute is there
recognized, and that, when so vested, the federal courts, sitting
in the states where such statutes exist, will also entertain
concurrent jurisdiction in a case between proper parties.
There are, it is true, in several decisions of this Court
expressions of opinion that the federal courts have no probate
jurisdiction, referring particularly to the establishment of wills,
and such is undoubtedly the case under the existing legislation of
Congress. The reason lies in the nature of the proceeding to
probate a will as one
in rem, which does not necessarily
involve any controversy between parties; indeed, in the majority of
instances no such controversy exists. In its initiation all persons
are cited to appear, whether of the state where the will is offered
or of other states. From its nature and from the want of parties or
the fact that all the world are parties,
Page 92 U. S. 22
the proceeding is not within the designation of cases at law or
in equity between parties of different states of which the federal
courts have concurrent jurisdiction with the state courts under the
Judiciary Act; but whenever a controversy in a suit between such
parties arises respecting the validity or construction of a will or
the enforcement of a decree admitting it to probate, there is no
more reason why the federal courts should not take jurisdiction of
the case than there is that they should not take jurisdiction of
any other controversy between the parties.
But as already observed, it is sufficient for the disposition of
this case that the statute of 1867, in authorizing a transfer of
the cause to the federal court, does, in our judgment, by that fact
invest that court with all needed jurisdiction to adjudicate
finally and settle the controversy involved.
It follows from the views thus expressed that the judgment of
the Supreme Court of Louisiana must be reversed, with directions to
reverse the judgment of the Parish Court of Orleans and to direct a
transfer of the cause from that court to the circuit court of the
United States, pursuant to the application of the plaintiff in
error.
Judgment reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE SWAYNE,
dissenting.
The question whether the proceeding in this case, which was
instituted in the state court of probate, was removable thence into
the circuit court of the United States depends upon the true
construction of the acts of Congress which give the right of
removal. The first act on this subject was the twelfth section of
the Judiciary Act of 1789, which declares
"that if a suit be commenced in any state court against an
alien, or by a citizen of the state in which the suit is brought
against a citizen of another state [and certain conditions and
security specified in the act be performed and tendered], it shall
be the duty of the state court to . . . proceed no further in the
cause, . . . which shall then proceed in the circuit court in the
same manner as if it had been brought there by original
process."
This twelfth section cannot be entirely understood without
reference to the preceding section, by which
Page 92 U. S. 23
the original jurisdiction of the circuit court was conferred.
That section declares that the circuit courts shall have original
cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several states, of
all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity, where the
matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of
$500, and the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners, or an
alien is a party, or the suit is between a citizen of the state
where the suit is brought and a citizen of another state, but
that
"no civil suit shall be brought before either of said courts
against an inhabitant of the United States by any original process
in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant, or in
which he shall be found at the time of serving the writ."
Now, the question arises, What proceedings are meant by the
phrase "suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity," in the
latter section, conferring original jurisdiction, and the phrase "a
suit," in the former section, giving the right of removal? A "suit
of a civil nature at common law or in equity" may, by virtue of the
eleventh section, be brought in a circuit court if the parties are
citizens of different states, and one of them is a citizen of the
state where the suit is brought. "A suit" commenced in any state
court by a citizen of that state against a citizen of another state
may be removed into the circuit court; and, when removed, it is
directed that "the cause shall then proceed in the same manner as
if it had been brought there by original process." By this act,
therefore, any "suit" which could have been originally brought in
the circuit court may be removed there from the state court, if
brought by a citizen of the state against a citizen of another
state; and it was always supposed that, if it could not be
originally brought there, it could not be removed there, because it
is to be proceeded in "as if it had been brought there by original
process." Mr. Justice Story, in a case before him decided in 1836,
in reference to this section used the following language:
"It is apparent, from the language of the closing passage of the
section above quoted, that it contemplates such cases, and such
cases only, to be liable to removal, as might under the law, or at
all events under the Constitution, have been brought before the
circuit court by original process. "
Page 92 U. S. 24
Judge Conkling, in his "Treatise on the United States Courts" (a
work long used with approbation by the profession), says,
"It is obvious from the language of the twelfth section of the
Judicial Act, that it was not intended by it to extend the
jurisdiction of these courts over causes brought before them on
removal beyond the limits prescribed to their original
jurisdiction; and such, as far as it goes, is the judicial
construction which has been given to this section."
Congress undoubtedly might authorize, and in special cases has
authorized, the removal of causes from state courts to the United
States Court which could not have been originally brought in the
latter. An instance of the kind is found in this very twelfth
section, in a special case where a suit respecting the title to
land has been commenced in a state court between two citizens of
the same state, and one of the parties, before the trial, states to
the court by affidavit that he claims title under a grant from
another state. In
Bushnell v.
Kennedy, 9 Wall. 387, however, this Court held that
a citizen of one state sued in another state by a citizen thereof
on a claim which had belonged to a citizen of the latter state, and
had been assigned to the plaintiff, might have the cause removed to
the circuit court of the United States, although, perhaps it might
not have been originally cognizable therein, but it still remains
to determine what kinds of controversies are intended by the
act.
Now the phrase, "suits at common law and in equity" in this
section and the corresponding term "suit" in the twelfth are
undoubtedly of very broad signification, and cannot be construed to
embrace only ordinary actions at law and ordinary suits in equity,
but must be construed to embrace all litigations between party and
party which in the English system of jurisprudence, under the light
of which the Judiciary Act as well as the Constitution was framed,
were embraced in all the various forms of procedure carried on in
the ordinary law and equity courts, as distinguished from the
ecclesiastical, admiralty, and military courts of the realm. The
matters litigated in these extraordinary courts are not, by a fair
construction of the Judiciary Act, embraced in the terms "suit at
law or in equity," or "suit," unless they have become
Page 92 U. S. 25
incorporated with the general mass of municipal law and
subjected to the cognizance of the ordinary courts.
Now it is perfectly plain that an application for the probate of
a will is not such a subject as is fairly embraced in these terms.
This Court has in repeated instances expressly said that the
probate of wills and the administration of estates do not belong to
the jurisdiction of the federal courts under the grant of
jurisdiction contained in the Judiciary Act, and it may without
qualification be stated that no respectable authority, in the
profession or on the bench, has ever contended for any such
jurisdiction. Whether, after a will is proposed for probate and a
caveat has been put in against it and a
contestatio litis
has thus been raised, and a controversy instituted inter partes,
Congress might not authorize the removal of the cause for trial to
a federal court, where the parties
pro and
con
are citizens of different states, is not now the question. The
question before us is whether Congress has ever done so, and it
seems to me that it has not. The controversy is not of that sort or
nature which belongs to the category of a suit at law or in equity,
as those terms were used in the Judiciary Act.
It is not intended to say that the validity of a will may not
often come in question, and require adjudication in both a court of
law and a court of equity. It does come in question frequently.
Devisavit vel non is an issue frequently made at law, and
directed in equity; and there are special cases also where the
validity of a will may be investigated in equity, as shown in the
case of
Broderick's Will, lately decided by this Court.
But that is a very different thing from hearing and determining a
question of probate, even when the question becomes a litigated
one. This question belongs to special courts, having a special mode
of procedure, and is subject to rules that took their origin in the
ecclesiastical laws; and it certainly cannot be seriously
contended, that if the federal courts have no jurisdiction of the
probate of wills, they nevertheless have jurisdiction of
proceedings to revoke the probate. This would be to assume the
whole jurisdiction of the subject.
The proceeding in the case below was one to revoke the probate
of a will -- simply that and nothing more. It was not merely to set
aside the will so far as it affected the defendants
Page 92 U. S. 26
in error. Not at all. It brought up the question of probate
under a form of proceeding peculiar to the course of justice in
Louisiana, called an action of nullity. This action may undoubtedly
be entertained in the federal courts in that state; at all events,
to set aside their own judgments. But can it be entertained when
the object is to revoke the probate of a will by a decree to annul
the judgment of probate? That is the precise question to be
determined here.
It is contended, however, that the Act of March 2, 1867, which
gives the right of removal to the federal court of a suit in which
there is controversy between a citizen of the state in which the
suit is brought and a citizen of another state, where the latter
makes affidavit that he was reason to and does believe that, from
prejudice or local influence, he will not be able to obtain justice
in the state court, extends the jurisdiction of the circuit court
to cases of every kind of controversy which may be litigated
between parties. But I cannot perceive any such intention in the
act. There is no indication that the jurisdiction of the federal
court was meant to be extended to any class of cases to which it
did not extend before. It authorizes the removal at any time before
trial, and gives the right to the plaintiff as well as the
defendant. These are the only changes that seem to have been in the
mind of Congress.
If it is desirable that the right of removal should be extended
to cases like the present, it is easy for Congress to legislate to
that effect. Until it does so, the right in my judgment does not
exist. Perhaps it is desirable that the law should be as the
plaintiff in error contends it is; but it is not for the court to
make the law, but to declare what law has been made. I cannot free
myself from the conviction, that the decision of the court in this
case is based rather upon what it is deemed the law should be than
upon a sound construction of the statutes which have been actually
enacted.
In my opinion, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana
ought to be affirmed.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE also dissented from the judgment of the
Court.
