Peninsular Iron Co. v. Stone

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal from a decree dismissing the bill in a suit in equity begun by certain'citizens of Michigan and Samuel M. Carpenter, Charles Wason, and Leander M. Hubby, citizens of Ohio, against Andros B. Stone, a citizen of New York, The St. Louis, Keokuk and Northwestern Railway Company, an Iowa corporation, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company, an Illinois corporation, and Dan. P. Eels, a citizen of Ohio, to bring the defendants Stone and Eels to an accounting under a certain contract made, by Stone with the complain-ants and others, by -which he was to purchase the property of the Mississippi Yalley and-Western Railway Compaq, about to be sold under a decree of foreclosure, andTiold the same in

In Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 3 Cranch, 267 , decided in 1806, it was held.: “Where the interest is joint, each of the persons concerned in that interest must be competent to sue, or hable to be sued, in those courts.” “ But,” it was added, “ the court does not mean to give an opinion in the case where several parties represent several distinct interests, and some of those parties are, and others are not, competent to sue, or hable to be sued, in the courts of the United States.” In New Orleans v. Winter, 1 Wheat. 91 , decided in 1816, a suit had been brought in the District Court for the District of Louisiana by the heirs of Elisha Winter, deceased, to recover possession of certain lands under an alleged grant from the Spanish government. One of the plaintiffs could sue in the courts of the United States, but the others could not, and the question of jurisdiction in the District Court was raised. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the court, after referring to what had been decided in Strawbridge v. Curtiss, said: “In this case, it has been doubted, whether the parties might elect to sue jointly or severally. However this may be, having elected to sue jointly, the court is incapable of distinguishing their case, so far as respects jurisdiction, from one in which

In the present case the rights of each and all of the parties depend on the alleged contract with Stone, and although, as between themselves, they have separate and distinct interests, they join in a suit to' enforce an obligation which is common to all. There is but a single cause of action, and while all the complainants need not have joined in enforcing it, they, have done so, and this, under the rule in New Orleans v. Winter, controls the jurisdiction. It is, therefore, a suit to which citizens of Ohio are parties on one side and a citizen of Ohio a party on the other, with interests so conflicting that the relief prayed cannot be had without keeping them on opposite sides of the matter in dispute. It follows that the Circuit Court was without jurisdiction, and could not render a decree dismissing the bifl-Qn its merits. For this reason the decree must be .reversed, Continental Insurance Co. v. Rhoads, 119 U. S. 237 , 239, and cases there cited; but as the error is attributable to the present appellants, whose duty it was'to make the jurisdiction appear, the reversal will be at their costs in this court. Everhart v. Huntsville College, 120 U. S. 223 .

The decree is reversed and the canse remanded, with directions to dismiss the bill for want of ju/risdiction, and without prejudice.