Watson v. Bondurant

¶1The main controversy arising on this motion is, whether the case is one which can be properly removed from the state court to this court. The de-*427feudant appears very clearly to be a citizen of the state of Mississippi, and the complainant a citizen of the state of Louisiana. The case is a suit of a civil nature and of equitable cognizance. It therefore falls expressly within the terms of section 2 of the act of March 3, 1875. But counsel for the complainant say, that the purpose of the suit being to procure the allowance of an injunction to stay proceedings in a state court, it does not belong to the class of cases that can be removed, because a court of the United States is forbidden by section 720, revised statutes, to grant such an injunction. As the act of March 3, 1875, is broad enough to embrace this ease, providing as it does in section 4, that all injunctions had in the suit before its removal shall remain in full force and effect until dissolved or modified by the court to which the suit shall be removed, and as the act makes no exception of eases brought in a state court to enjoin proceedings in a state court, and, finally, as the act of 1875 is subsequent in date to the revised statutes, I am of opinion, that the case is one properly removeable, and that it has been properly removed into this court. I am not, however, as yet satisfied that the injunction ought to be dissolved. The ground on which the dissolution is urged is, in effect, that the petition does not make a case for the writ of injunction. It seems to me, that the averments of the petition, un-contradicted as they are by this motion, are sufficient, to show that the fieri facias ought to be enjoined. I will, therefore, suspend action on the motion until the defendant either answers the bill or makes such further showing as will justify the court in granting the motion.