Citation Numbers: 149 Misc. 519
Judges: Cotillo
Filed Date: 11/13/1933
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 1/12/2023
This application is made by defendant to remove the cause to the United States District Court on the ground that a corporation organized under the laws of the United States is a party, and the transaction involves international or foreign banking. This ground for removal was created by statute as of the effective date of June 16, 1933. The action itself was commenced by the service of a summons and complaint on June 6, 1.933, and it is urged by plaintiff that the new statute applies only to actions instituted subsequent to June 16, 1933. Defendant argues that in matters of doubtful Federal jurisdiction the State
Examining the motion on the merits and assuming the sufficiency of the bond, we must examine into the existence of the jurisdictional elements. In Matter of Winn (213 U. S. 458) it was said: “ It is well settled that no cause can be removed from the state court to the Circuit Court of the United States unless it could originally have been brought in the latter court.” And in Ex Parte Wisner (203 U. S. 449) it was held that the question of jurisdiction relates to the time of commencing the Suit. When the action ivas instituted the statute provided that all national banking associations should be deemed citizens of the States in which they are located. (Act of March 3, 1911, chap. 231, § 24, f 16 [U. S. Cede, tit. 28, § 41, f 16].) On June 6,1933, therefore, Congress, in accordance with its power to define the jurisdiction of the Federal courts lower than the Supreme Court, specifically barred exercise of jurisdiction in a controversy between a national bank located in a given State and a citizen of the same State. On June 16, 1933, limited jurisdiction was conferred upon the Federal courts in certain controversies of this type by the following statute amending the Federal Reserve Act:
“ Sec. 25 (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity to which any corporation organized under the laws of the United States shall be a party, arising out of transactions involving international or foreign banking, or banking in a dependency or insular possession of the United States, or out of other international or foreign financial operations, either directly or through the agency, ownership, or control of branches’or local institutions in dependencies or insular possessions of the United States or in foreign countries, shall be deemed to arise under the laws of the United States, and the district courts of the United States shall have original jurisdiction of all such suits; and any defendant in any such suit may, at any time before the trial thereof, remove such suits from a State court into the district court of the United States for the proper district by following the procedure for the removal of causes otherwise provided by law.”
It cannot be disputed that Congress had the right to confer the jurisdiction upon the District Court in the way it accomplished by section 25 (b). In fact, prior to 1911, the statute gave the District Court unlimited jurisdiction over suits by or against
It is significant that all previous removal legislation when first formulated, was, in terms, made to apply to pending actions. In the codification of the laws of the United States by the United States Code the application to pending actions was omitted only because such reference had become obsolete. No new principles applicable to removal were introduced by section 71, title 28, of the United States Code, and the omission of reference to pending actions was due to the fact that there could not in the nature of things be any remaining actions pending at the time of the passage of the appropriate removal statute, which still remained undisposed of. It should not, therefore, be assumed, without clear evidence of legislative intent, that a new type of removal statute would be passed, to embrace a new class of cases, with absolute right of
The application for removal is, therefore, denied.