Thorn Wire Hedge Co. v. Fuller

Citations

• 122 U.S. 535
• 7 S. Ct. 1265
• 30 L. Ed. 1235
• 1887 U.S. LEXIS 2135

Syllabus

<p>An Illinois corporation recovered judgment against P., a citizen of Minnesota, in a court of that state. An execution issued thereon was placed in the sheriff’s hands with directions to levy on property of P. which had been transferred to F., and was in F.’s possession, the corporation giving the officer a bond with sureties. F. sued the officer in trespass, and he, answered, setting up that the goods were the property of the execution debtor. The corporation and the sureties then intervened as defendants, •and answered, setting up the same ownership of the property, and further that the sheriff had acted under their directions, and that they were the parties primarily liable. The plaintiffs in that suit replied, and the intervenors then petitioned for the removal of the cause to the Circuit Court of the United States, setting forth as a reason therefor that the plaintiff and the sheriff were citizens of Minnesota, the intervenors and petitioners citizens of Illinois; that the real controversy was between the plaintiff and the petitioners; and that the petitioners believed that through prejudice and local influence they could not obtain justice in the state court. The cause was removed on this petition, and a few days later was remanded to the state court on the plaintiff’s motion.</p> <p>Held, that, on their own showing the intervenors were joint trespassers •with the sheriff, if any trespass had been committed, and by their own act they had made themselves joint defendants with him, and thatmn the authority of Pirie v. Tvedt, 115 U. S. 41, and Sloane v. Anderson, 117 U. S. '275, the cause was not removable from the state court.</p>