Opinion of the Court.

liquidated damages, in which the amount which the plaintiff was entitled to recover was a question for the jury; an inspection of the declaration did not disclose and could not disclose but that the plaintiff was entitled to recover the amount claimed, and hence, even if the jury found a verdict in a sum less than the jurisdictional amount, the jurisdiction of the court would not be defeated. Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U. S. 550; Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 58, 89.

But where the plaintiff asserts, as his cause of action, a claim which he cannot be legally permitted to sustain by evidence, a mere ad damnum clause will not confer jurisdiction on the Circuit Court, but the court on motion or demurrer, or of its own motion, may dismiss the suit. And such, we think, was the present case.

We do not consider it necessary to enter upon a discussion of the rule that a person is not to be held responsible in damages for the remote consequences of every negligent act, but only for those which are proximate or natural, and shall content ourselves by stating our conclusion that, in the circumstances disclosed by the plaintiff's declaration and in the certificate of the trial judge, the defendant company, though liable in a court of competent jurisdiction for the other claims asserted, cannot be held for the amount of wages or profits which the plaintiff suggests he might have earned had he reached Dawson City.

In the District Judge's certificate it is stated that the plaintiff did not allege that he had ever lived in Dawson City before, or had any previous engagement or business there or any promise of employment; that it was not alleged what, if any, occupation the plaintiff had before his departure on the journey, nor what occupation was expected at the point of destination, or that any expected occupation or employment was communicated to the defendant company.

The plaintiff was traveling to a land of promise, hoping to there procure some occupation, he knew not what, or to engage in some business, he knew not what. The result of such an adventure cannot be foretold, and the plaintiff's anticipations afford no safe ground on which to base a claim for damages.

If, then, the plaintiff in respect to his own claim, did not dis

Opinion of the Court.

close a case of which the Circuit Court had jurisdiction, did he overcome that difficulty by the additional counts in which he alleged himself to be the assignee of several other voyagers who had suffered loss and damages similar to those claimed by him on his own behalf? The citizenship of the assignors was not alleged, and the greater portion of the respective claims consisted of matter which we have held in reference to plaintiff's own claim to be too remote and uncertain to be allowed.

It is somewhat uncertain, upon the facts alleged in the declaration and those stated to us in the certificate of the District Judge, whether if all the claims, as well those assigned and those held by the plaintiff in his own right, omitting those which we have held to be too remote and uncertain, were aggregated, they would reach the necessary jurisdictional amount. But however that may be, as it is not alleged that the assignors could have themselves prosecuted suit in the Circuit Court, it is the settled construction of the statutes of the United States that the suit cannot be maintained in favor of the assignee.

Serè v. Pitot, 6 Cranch, 332, was an action commenced to foreclose a mortgage given by a citizen of Louisiana to another citizen of the same State. The language of the judiciary act of 1789 was as follows: "Nor shall any District or Circuit Court have cognizance of any suit to recover the contents of any promissory note or other chose in action in favor of an assignee, unless a suit might have been prosecuted in such court to recover the said contents if no assignment had been made." 1 Stat. 78. The plaintiff was the general assignee in insolvency of the mortgagor, and was an alien; and it was said by Chief Justice Marshall, delivering the opinion of the court:

"Without doubt assignable paper, being the chose in action most usually transferred, was in the mind of the legislature when the law was framed, and the words of the provision are, therefore, best adapted to that class of assignments. But there is no reason to believe that the legislature were not equally disposed to except from the jurisdiction of the Federal courts those who could sue in virtue of equitable assignments and those who could sue in virtue of legal assignments. The assignee of all the open accounts of a merchant might, under certain circumstances, be

Opinion of the Court.

permitted to sue in equity in his own name, and there would be as much reason to exclude him from the Federal courts as to exclude the same person when the assignee of a particular note. The term 'other chose in action' is broad enough to comprehend either case, and the word 'contents' is too ambiguous in its import to restrain that general term. The contents of a note are the sums it shows to be due, and the same, without much violence to the language, can be said of an account."

And the same construction was put upon the language of the act of August 13, 1888, c. 866, 25 Stat. 433. Mexican National Railroad v. Davidson, 157 U. S. 201.

We do not think that it was competent for the plaintiff to add to his own cause of action, in order to obtain jurisdiction in the Circuit Court, claims assigned by those whose citizenship and residence did not appear either in the complaint or in the petition for removal. As, however, the plaintiff brought his action in the state court, where he was entitled to join the assigned claims with his own, and as the case was removed into the Federal court at the instance of the defendant company, whose motion to remand the case we are now obliged to sustain, we impose the costs in the Circuit Court and in this court on the North American Transportation and Trading Company, the plaintiff in error.

These views render it needless to answer severally the questions certified.

Accordingly the judgment of the Circuit Court is reversed, and the cause is remanded to that court, with directions to remand the cause to the state court.

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PITTSBURGH AND LAKE ANGELINE IRON COMPANY v. CLEVELAND IRON MINING CO.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN.

No. 260. Argued April 24, 25, 1900.- Decided May 21, 1900.

For the reasons set forth in the opinion of the court, the case was dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

THE case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. F. O. Clark for plaintiff in error. Mr. Alfred Russell was on his brief.

Mr. Benton Hanchett and Mr. James H. Hoyt for defendants in error. Mr. A. C. Dustin and Mr. George Hayden were on

their briefs.

MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff in error and the defendants in error were respectively plaintiff and defendant in the court below, and we will so designate them. They were riparian owners on a body of water called Lake Angeline, in the State of Michigan, and this suit is to determine the extent of their respective ownerships to the bed of the lake. They all derived title through United States patents, and the controversy is claimed by plaintiff to arise from their construction and effect.

The trial court dismissed plaintiff's bill, and its action was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State, 76 N. W. Rep. 395, and this writ of error was then sued out.

A motion is made to dismiss for want of jurisdiction in this court, on the ground that no Federal question was raised in the state court, or, if one was raised, the decision of the state court was rested on a question not Federal, which was sufficient to sustain the judgment.

Under the circumstances of this case it will be more orderly

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to consider the latter ground first, and its proper determination requires a consideration of the opinion of the Supreme Court, of its statement of facts (which we condense) and of its conclusions from those facts:

"Lake Angeline was situated on sections 10, 11, and 15, T. 47 N., R. 27 W., and was within the corporate limits of the city of Ishpeming, in Marquette County. It contained 148.61 acres within the government meander lines. It was a mile in length east and west, and 1690 feet in width on the centre line of section 10, which is its widest point.

"The three parties to this litigation own all the lands surrounding this lake; the complainant owning that part of section 15 bordering upon the lake; the defendant Cleveland Iron Mining Company owning that part of sections 10 and 11 bordering on the lake east of the centre line of section 10; and the defendant Lake Superior Iron Company owning that part west of said centre line. These three mining corporations have owned this land about thirty years and have been engaged in mining upon their respective properties for more than twenty years. For the sake of brevity, these companies will be designated by their initial letters."

No ore was known to exist in the bed of the lake until the winter of 1886 and 1887, when it was discovered on territory not owned by plaintiff, but plaintiff was informed of the discovery. Afterwards ore was discovered on its territory. The extent and locality of the ore beds were not exactly known, and negotiations were entered into for pumping out the lake, and ended in a contract between the parties.

It recited the discovery of the ore and the necessity of pumping out the lake, in order to "economically mine such ore as lies under such portions of said bed as each of said parties is respectively entitled to."

It provided for the purchase of a pumping apparatus which one B. C. Howell had, and, in consideration of the "mutual considerations received each from each, the receipt of which is hereby respectively acknowledged.”

The agreement then provided what proportion of the cost of