EX PARTE RAILWAY COMPANY
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A railway company sought a writ of mandamus to challenge a Circuit Court judgment dismissing a suit filed against a Massachusetts resident in the Iowa federal circuit court. The Supreme Court denied the motion, holding that mandamus could not be used as a substitute for a writ of error to review the lower court's judgment, and that the Circuit Court properly lacked jurisdiction because federal law prohibited civil suits against out-of-state defendants in federal courts outside their home state or where they were found.
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Mr. Chief Justice Waite delivered the opinion of the court.
This motion is denied, 1, because it is an attempt to use the writ of mandamus as a writ of error to bring here for review the judgment of the Circuit Court upon a plea to the jurisdiction filed yin the suit; and, 2, because if a writ of mandamus could be used for ’ such a purpose the judgment below was clearly right. Under sect. 739 of the Revised Statutes, no civil suit, not local in its nature, can be brought in the Circuit Court of the United States, against an inhabitant of the United States, by original process, in any other State than that of which he is an inhabitant, or in which he is found at the time of serving the writ. It is conceded that the person against whom this suit was brought in the Circuit Court was an inhabitant of the State of Massachusetts, and was not found in or served with process in Iowa. Clearly, then, he was not suable in the Circuit Court of the District of Iowa, and unless he could be sued no attachment could issue from' that court against his property. An attachment is but an incident to a suit, and unless the suit can be maintained the attachment must fall. The act of June 4, 1880, c. 120, “providing the times and places of holding the Circuit Court of the United States in the District of Iowa and for other purposes ” (21 Stat. 155), divides that district into four divisions, and requires suits against an inhabitant of the district to be brought in the division in which he resides. The provision of the second section, that, “ where the defendant is not a resident of the dis-. trict, suit may be brought in any division where property or the defendant is found,” applies only to suits which may be properly brought in the district against a non-resident. Such a suit, if not local, must be in the division where the defendant is found when served with process; if local, in the division where the property, which is the subject-matter of the action, is situated. There is not manifested anywhere in this act an intention of repealing sect. 739, so far as it affects the Iowa district.
Motion denied.
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Cited By (22 total)
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State v. Young, 31 Fla. 594 (Fla. 1893)
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The State of Fla. ex rel. Helen S. Burbridge v. Rhydon M. Call, 41 Fla. 450 (Fla. 1899)…y the pleadings, even though the effect of such decision is to hold that jurisdiction over the person of a defendant has not been acquired, appeal from such order if allowed does furnish an adequate remedy, precluding mandamus. Ex parte Railway Co., 103 U. S. 794; Ex parte Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., 108 U. S. 566 ,2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 876. In reaching o-ur conclusions upon this question we have not overlooked the decisions in Wheeling Bridge & T. R’y. Co. v. Paull, 39 W. Va. 142, 19 S. E. Rep. 551, and State ex…
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In re Pa. Co., 137 U.S. 451 (U.S. 1890)…urt has held that the plaintiff is confined to his remedy by writ of error, and cannot have a mandamus, which only lies, as a general rule, where there is no other adequate remedy. Ex parte Balt. & Ohio Railroad, 108 U. S. 566; Ex parte Railway Co., 103 U. S. 794. But it was expressly held in Railroad Co. v. Wiswall, 23 Wall. 507, that a mandamus would lie to compel a Circuit Court to take jurisdiction of and proceed Avith a case which it had Avrongfully remanded to the state court. The reason was that an or…
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