Gaines v. Fuentes/Opinion of the Court

by Stephen Johnson Field

United States Supreme Court

92 U.S. 10

Gaines  v.  Fuentes

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 defence, 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 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 id. 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 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 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 none the less 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 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 any thing 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, 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.

Notes