Plymouth Gold Mining Co. v. Amador & Sacramento Canal Co.

Citations

• 118 U.S. 264
• 6 S. Ct. 1034
• 30 L. Ed. 232
• 1886 U.S. LEXIS 1931

Syllabus

<p>When the same cause is brought to this court by appeal and by writ of error, on the same record, it is not necessary to docket it twice.</p> <p>A complaint or declaration charging a corporation, and individuals who are its agents and servants, with polluting a stream of water belonging to the plaintiff and rendering it unfit for use, and seeking a remedy against the defendants jointly, does not present a controversy separable for the purposes of removal from a State court, although the defendants answer separately setting up separate defences.</p> <p>Pirie v. Tvedt, 115 U. S. 41, and Sloane v. Anderson, 117 U. S. 278, affirmed and applied.</p> <p>When a complaint or declaration in an action in a State court sets up a joint cause of action in tort against several defendants for injuries done jointly to plaintiff, separate answers of the defendants setting up that the acts ■ complained of were committed under direction of one of them and were justified by a contract between plaintiff and -that particular defendant, and ' that the acts complained of as done by the other defendants were done by them as his servants and under his directions, do not necessarily change the controversy between the plaintiff and that defendant into a separate controversy, removable to the courts of the United States under the removal acts: and allegations in the petition for removal that the agents were joined as defendants in order to prevent the removal of the cause to the Circuit Court of the United'States are of no avail, if not proved.</p>