WEST
v.
AURORA CITY
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West and Torrance, Ohio citizens who initiated suit as plaintiffs in Indiana state court, sought removal to federal court after the defendants filed additional paragraphs that West and Torrance claimed transformed them into defendants in a removable case. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's remand to state court, holding that plaintiffs who voluntarily submit themselves to state court jurisdiction cannot subsequently remove a case based on defensive pleadings filed by the opposing party, and that removal is available only to defendants who promptly invoke the right upon appearance.
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The CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court.
' We think that the Circuit Court was clearly right in its action. The filing of the additional paragraphs did not make a new suit within the meaning of the Judicial Act. They were in the nature of defensive pleas, coupled with a prayer for injunction and general relief. This, if allowed by the code of Indiana, might give them, in some sense, the character of an original suit, but not such as could be removed from the jurisdiction of the State court. The right of removal is given only to a defendant who has not submitted himself to that jurisdiction ; not toan original plaintiff in a State court who, by resorting to that jurisdiction, has become liable under the State laws to a cross-action. And it is given only to a defendant who promptly avails himself of the right at the time of appearance, by declining to plead and filing his petition for removal.
In the case before us, West and Torrance, citizens of Ohio, voluntarily resorted, as plaintiffs, to the State court of Indiana. They were bound to know of what rights the defendants to their suit might avail themselves under the code. Submitting themselves to the jurisdiction they submitted themselves to it in its whole extent. The filing of the new paragraphs, therefore, could not make them defendants to a suit, removable on their application to the Circuit Court of the United States.
It is equally fatal to the supposed right of removal that the record presents only a fragment of a cause, unintelligible except by reference to other matters not sent up from the State court and through explanations of counsel.
A suit removable from a State court must be a suit regularly commenced by a citizen of the State in which the suit is brought, by process served upon a defendant who is a citizen of another State, and who, if he does not elect to remove, is bound to submit to the jurisdiction of the State court.
This is not such a suit, and the order of the Circuit Court remanding the cause to the State court must therefore be
Affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
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Shamrock OIL & GAS Corp. v. Sheets, 313 U.S. 100 (U.S. 1941)…its provisions only “by the defendant or defendants therein.” We granted certiorari, 312 U. S. 675, to resolve the conflict of the’ decision of the court below and that of Waco Hardware. Co. v. Michigan Stove Co., 91 F. 289; see West v. Aurora City, 6 Wall. 139, with numerous decisions of other circuit courts of appeals. Carson & Rand Lumber Co., v. Holtzclaw, 39 F. 578; Bankers Securities Corp. v. Insurance Equities Corp., 85 F. 2d 856; Chambers v. Skelly Oil Co., 87 F. 2d 853, and cases cited in note 5 o…1 / 2
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New York v. Estill, 147 U.S. 591 (U.S. 1893)…e in the Federal court, to quash the writ of summons and the sheriff’s return, states that the defendant appears specially and only for the purpose of making that-motion. The plaintiffs cite in support of their view the oases of West v. Aurora City, 6 Wall. 139; Bushnell v. Kennedy, 9 Wall. 387;. and Sayles v. Northwestern. Ins. Co., 2 Curtis, 212. The .opposing view is that the removal statute provides that, after removal; the cause shall proceed in the Federal court in .the same manner ais. if it had be…
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Hess v. Reynolds, 113 U.S. 73 (U.S. 1885)
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