Opinion · Supreme Court of the United States

General Investment Co. v. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Co.

Gen. Inv. Co. v. Lake Shore & Mich. S. Ry. Co., 260 U.S. 261 (1922)

Type
Opinion
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction
Federal
Date
1922-11-27
Topic
general

How later courts describe this case

  • concluding that denial of a motion to dismiss for improper service was interlocutory and district court could reconsider the same motion after removal
  • affirming the Sixth Circuit's decision and stating that if the action sought to enjoin a shareholder's voting rights, it was "obvious that the [larger shareholder] was an indispensable party"
  • questioning whether sound rationales support the finding of exclusive federal antitrust jurisdiction
  • “When a cause is re moved from a state court into a federal court, the latter takes it as it stood in the former.”
  • state court may not hear claim brought under antitrust laws; right to sue to be “exercised only in a ‘court of the United States’ ”
  • federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over actions under the Sherman and Clayton Acts, although statutes provide only that actions may be brought in federal court
  • federal court must dismiss for want of jurisdiction federal antitrust action originally filed in state court and subsequently removed to the former court
  • A want of jurisdiction in a state court over the subject matter of a case is not cured by removal to federal court

Citator

General Investment Co. v. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Co. has been questioned or limited by later authorities: relies on overruled authority: 28 S. Ct. 585 (overruled by Lee v. Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, 260 U.S. 653 (1923)). Read them before relying on it. 395 later decisions cite it.

Authority status
caution
Cited by
395 opinions

Headnotes

  1. Civil Procedure — Service of Process A motion to quash service of process may be made in and entertained by the District Court after removal of the cause, notwithstanding that the motion was previously made and overruled by the state court before removal, because the state court's ruling was interlocutory and subject to reconsideration, and upon removal the power to reconsider passed with the cause to the District Court, which must treat the prior ruling with respect but not as final or conclusive. 260 U.S. at 267
  2. Civil Procedure — Service of Process Service on a foreign railway corporation in a state where it had no railroad or officer, upon a person not its agent, is void. 260 U.S. at 268
  3. Civil Procedure — Removal A petition for removal filed in a state court, with or without reservations as to jurisdiction, is a special appearance only, and leaves the validity of attempted service of process open to question in the District Court, the removing party retaining the same right to invoke the federal court's decision on the validity of the prior service as to ask its judgment on the merits. 260 U.S. at 268
  4. Civil Procedure — Waiver An objection to the validity of service of process made by special appearance in the state court and renewed in like manner in the District Court after removal is not waived by a stipulation that evidence directly relating to the objection and used on the first hearing might be used on the second, where the party declared at the outset that it was appearing specially for the purpose only of questioning the validity of the service, and that declaration qualified every step taken to bring the question to a hearing and decision. 260 U.S. at 269
  5. Civil Procedure — Appearance — Subscription as "Solicitors for Defendants" The filing of a brief subscribed by solicitors as "solicitors for the defendants" is to be construed in light of the prior proceedings and the plain purport of the brief's body, and where those show it was filed on behalf of the only defendant then duly served, the plural term is an inadvertence and does not constitute a general appearance for a defendant not duly served. 260 U.S. at 270
  6. Civil Procedure — Venue The restriction that no civil suit shall be brought in the District Court against any person by original process in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant does not affect the general jurisdiction of the court over the particular cause, but merely establishes a personal privilege of the defendant, which he may waive and does waive by entering an appearance without claiming it. 260 U.S. at 272
  7. Civil Procedure — Removal Under the Judicial Code provisions permitting removal of causes to the District Court "for the proper district," the proper district is the one which includes the county or place where the suit in the state court is pending at the time of the removal. 260 U.S. at 274
  8. Civil Procedure — Removal In providing for removal of suits arising under the Federal Constitution or laws, "of which the district courts are given original jurisdiction by this title," the removal statute refers to the general jurisdiction conferred by the jurisdictional grant, and not to the venue provision governing the district in which suit may be brought; the clause vesting jurisdiction should not be confounded with the clause determining the particular court in which the jurisdiction must be exercised. 260 U.S. at 276
  9. Civil Procedure — Removal A suit arising under the Federal Constitution or laws may be removed to the "proper district" embracing the seat of the state court by a defendant who is not an inhabitant of that district, and who consequently could have objected to the venue had the suit been originally brought there, because in a suit of that class the right of removal is given to the defendant without any qualification as to citizenship or residence. 260 U.S. at 279
  10. Statutory Interpretation — Judicial Code — Effect of Rearrangement No change in the meaning of the Judiciary Act of August 13, 1888, was intended or wrought by the rearrangement of its parts in the Judicial Code. 260 U.S. at 278
  11. Antitrust & Competition Law — Venue Under Clayton Act § 12 Like the general venue provision, the special provision as to venue made by § 12 of the Clayton Act, respecting suits under the anti-trust laws, does not affect the general jurisdiction of the District Courts, but allows the defendant a personal privilege which he may waive. 260 U.S. at 279
  12. Civil Procedure — Service of Process The special service provision for suits to enforce a lien upon, claim to, or to remove an incumbrance or cloud upon the title to specific property located within the district applies only to suits local in the sense of relating directly to specific property; a suit to enjoin two railroad companies from consolidating, which is essentially in personam and strictly transitory, is not within that category and is not made local by an incidental prayer that the consolidation be annulled if consummated pending the suit. 260 U.S. at 279
  13. Remedies — Supplemental Bill — Office and Limits The office of a supplemental bill is to introduce matters occurring after the filing of the original bill, or not then known to the plaintiff, but not to shift the right in which the plaintiff sues or change the character and object of the suit. 260 U.S. at 281
  14. Remedies — Supplemental Bill — Discretion An application for leave to file a supplemental bill is addressed to the discretion of the court, and the ruling thereon will not be disturbed on appeal unless the discretion has been abused. 260 U.S. at 281
  15. Civil Procedure — Law of the Case Where a decree dismissing a bill was affirmed in part and reversed in part on Appeal upon the ground that, as to the remainder, the dismissal was erroneously based on a supposed defect of parties, other objections to the remaining part which might have been but were not urged or considered on the appeal may be considered by the District Court upon return of the case and by the Circuit Court of Appeals on a second appeal. 260 U.S. at 284
  16. Remedies — Parties — Indispensable Party In a shareholder's suit to prevent two corporations from carrying out an agreement for a consolidation alleged to be unlawful, which agreement was subject to ratification by their shareholders, one corporation that held shares of the other was an indispensable party as to so much of the bill as sought to enjoin it from voting those shares and to enjoin the other from permitting it to do so, but not as to so much of the bill as sought to enjoin the other from entering into or consummating the proposed consolidation. 260 U.S. at 285
  17. Antitrust & Competition Law — Clayton Act § 16 — Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction Under § 16 of the Clayton Act, a private suit to enjoin a violation of that Act or of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act can only be brought in a federal court; such a suit cannot be brought in a state court. 260 U.S. at 286
  18. Civil Procedure — Removal When a cause is removed from a state court into a federal court, the latter takes it as it stood in the former; a want of jurisdiction in the state court is not cured by the removal, but may be asserted after it is consummated. 260 U.S. at 288
  19. Civil Procedure — Dismissal — Without Prejudice A decree dismissing a bill for want of jurisdiction should be without prejudice. 260 U.S. at 288
  20. Remedies — Pleading — Shareholder Suits to Enjoin Conduct Violative of State Law Where a private individual, in virtue of a minute interest in the stock of a railroad corporation acquired after it entered into an agreement looking to consolidation, seeks to enjoin the consolidation as contrary to the policy of the state respecting control of parallel, competing lines, but shows by his allegations that the control complained of has long existed practically through stock ownership and exhibits no objection on the part of the state or the other shareholders, he must show in his bill, with precision and certainty, in what respects the law is about to be violated and, clearly and positively, that substantial and irreparable injury will result to his private rights. 260 U.S. at 288