Patch v. Wabash R. Co., 207 U.S. 277 (1907)

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Patch v. Wabash Railroad Company

No. 67

Argued November 16, 1907
Decided December 2, 1907
207 U.S. 277

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

Syllabus

The certificate of a judge of the circuit court that the judgment is based solely on jurisdictional grounds is an act of record, and quaere whether it stands on any different ground from judgments and the like when the term has passed, and whether it can then be amended so as to show that it was signed inadvertently and by mistake and to certify that the question of jurisdiction was not passed on and that the decision was based on another ground. Such a mistake is not clerical.

The provision in a state statute that no nonresident shall be appointed or act as administrator or executor does not open the appointment of a nonresident to collateral attack in an action brought by him so as to deprive him of his right to file a plea that the case cannot be removed to the federal court.

A corporation incorporated simultaneously and freely in several states exists in each state by virtue of the laws of that state, and when it incurs a liability under the laws of one of the states in which it is incorporated and is sued therein, it cannot escape the jurisdiction thereof and remove to the federal court on the ground that, as it is also incorporated in the other states, it is not a citizen of that state. Southern Railway v. Allison, 190 U.S. 326, and other cases, holding that, where the corporation originally incorporated in one state was compelled to become a corporation of another state so as to exercise it power therein, distinguished.

The facts are stated in the opinion.