NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY
v.
WALKER
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Northern Pacific Railroad Company sought to invalidate tax assessments and prevent the sale of its lands by twelve North Dakota county auditors, but the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's dismissal and remanded the case, holding that the Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction because the total amount in controversy did not exceed $2,000, the jurisdictional threshold required for federal court review. The Court established that defendants cannot be joined in a single suit merely to manufacture federal jurisdiction when the individual amounts at issue fall below the statutory minimum.
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Mr. Chief Justice Fuller delivered the opinion of the court.
This was a bill filed in the Circuit Court of the Hnited States for the District of North Dakota, November 21, 1890, by the Northern Pacific Bailroad Company against the county auditors of twelve counties of that State, praying for a decree adjudging certain assessments and taxes levied upon lands in each of said counties to be illegal and void and a cloud upon complainant’s title, and that defendants and-each of them be restrained from selling or attempting to sell said lands or any portion thereof,- or issuing any tax certificates therefor. The cáse proceeded to a decree, dismissing the bill for want of éqúity, whereupon it was carried by appeal to the Circuit ’ Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Certain questions or propositions of-law, concerning which that court desired the instruction of the Supreme Court for a proper decision of the .case, were certified to this court, and argument having been had upon the certificate, we directed a certiorari to issue requiring the whole record and cause to be sent up for consideration. This has been done, and we find upon examination that the case comes directly within Walter v. Northeastern Railroad, 147 U. S. 370.
The record does not show that the amount of the assessments and taxes, forming the subject of the litigation, levied in either or all of the counties, exceeded the sum of $2000; and even if this had been so as to the aggregate, the defendants could not have been joined in a single suit, and the jurisdiction thus been sustained. Upon the face of the record, therefore, the Circuit Court was without jurisdiction, (act of March 3,1887, 24 Stat. 552, c. 373; act of August 13, 1888, 25 Stat. 433, c. 866,) but as perhaps by amendment the bill might be retained as to some one of the defendants, we will not direct its dismissal.
In pursuance of section 10 of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, %6 Stat. 889, c. 517, the decree of the Circuit Court is reversed at the costs of the appellant, and the cause remanded to that court with a directionfor further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
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Citator
Cited By (22 total)
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Citizens' Bank v. Cannon, 164 U.S. 319 (U.S. 1896)…confer jurisdiction on the Circuit Court, could be reached by adding together the taxes for the several parishes. But, for reasons given in the recent cases of Walter v. Northeastern Railroad, 147 U. S. 370, and Northern Pacific Railroad v. Walker, 148 U. S. 391, jurisdiction cannot be conferred on the Circuit Court by joining in one bill against distinct defendants claims no one of which reached the jurisdictional amount. It is now contended that, as it appears in the extract from the assessment roll for t…
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Sovereign Camp Woodmen of the World v. O'Neill, 266 U.S. 292 (U.S. 1924)…t — although depending for their validity upon a common origin — the test of jurisdiction is the amount of each separate claim, and not their aggregate amount. Walter v. Northeastern Railroad, 147 U. S. 370, 372; Northern Pacific Railroad v. Walker, 148 U. S. 391, 392; Fishback v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 161 U. S. 96, 100; Citizens’ Bank v. Cannon, 164 U. S. 319, 322. An exception to this general rule was, however, recognized in McDaniel v. Traylor, 196 U. S. 415, 427. There the heirs of one Hiram Evans…
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Cent. Mexico Light & Power Co. v. Munch, 116 F.2d 85 (2d Cir. 1940)…there is no real connection between them, and hence the amounts in controversy may not be aggregated to make up the jurisdictional amount required. Citizens’ Bank v. Cannon, 164 U.S. 319, 17 S.Ct. 89, 41 L.Ed. 451; Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Walker, 148 U.S. 391, 13 S.Ct. 650, 37 L.Ed. 494; Walter v. Northeastern R. Co., 147 U.S. 370, 13 S.Ct. 348, 37 L.Ed. 206; see also Woodmen of the World v. O’Neill, 266 U.S. 292, 45 S.Ct. 49, 69 L.Ed. 293. For like reasons a judgment rendered in such an action is not b…
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- Walter v. Ne. R.R. Co., 147 U.S. 370 (U.S. 1893)