Cowley v. Northern Pacific Railroad

Citations

• 159 U.S. 569
• 16 S. Ct. 127
• 40 L. Ed. 263
• 1895 U.S. LEXIS 2324

Syllabus

<p>In a proceeding — commenced in a court of the State of Washington, under the statutes of that State, by filing a petition to set aside a judgment charged to have been obtained there through fraud and collusion between the plaintiff’s attorney of record and the defendant’s attorney of record, and against the plaintiff’s instructions touching a pretended compromise — and removed on the defendant’s motion to the Circuit Court of the United States for that Circuit, it is Reld, that the cause, although in the nature of a bill in equity, remained, so far as the rights of the plaintiff were concerned, a special proceeding under the Territorial statute, and that the powers of the Federal court, in dealing with it, were gauged not merely by its general equity jurisdiction, but by the special authority given the State courts by statute.</p> <p>Federal courts may enforce on their equity or admiralty side new rights or , privileges conferred by State or Territorial statutes as they may enforce new rights of action, given by statute, upon their common,law side.</p> <p>The averment in such a petition that the case was a case of fraud within the provisions of the statute of the State was sufficient to give the Federal court jurisdiction to act under the statute, and such jurisdiction could not be defeated by proof that no fraud was actually committed; but the plaintiff would be entitled to recover if he were able to show that he never assented to the pretended compromise, or that he repudiated it, and revoked the authority of his attorneys.</p> <p>The case having been removed to the Federal court upon the defendant’s petition, it does not lie in its mouth to claim that that court had no jurisdiction of the case, unless the court from which it was removed had no jurisdiction.</p>