Today in Supreme Court History: February 13

Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. 267 (decided February 13, 1806): Out of this pedantic seed grew upwards of two hundred years of ridiculously wasteful procedural litigation. Marshall holds that federal court jurisdiction “between a citizen of a state and a citizen of another state”, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, means that in a diversity action every plaintiff must be from a different state from every defendant. The Constitution itself says only “between citizens of different states”, art. III, §2, and there’s nothing to stop Congress from undoing this decision by statute. The Court itself has noted that all Article III really requires is “minimal” diversity (just one plaintiff has to be from a different state from just one defendant); see 545 U.S. 546. A bill to totally abolish diversity jurisdiction passed the House of Representatives resoundingly in 1978 but failed in the Senate, defeated by the lawyers’ lobby. (Marshall later regretted this holding, see discussion at 43 U.S. 497, 555.)

Phillips v. Mound City Land & Water Ass’n, 124 U.S. 605 (decided February 13, 1888): no federal question presented by state court’s partitioning of land in Los Angeles according to its construction of laws of Mexico as they existed pre-conquest (conquest by the United States, that is)

United States v. Jung Ah Lung, 124 U.S. 621 (decided February 13, 1888): Chinese national in custody after not being allowed to land in San Francisco due to Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was permitted to bring habeas petition (habeas statute was then changed in 1891 to disallow immigrant petitions, see Dept. of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 2020)

Miller v. Pate, 386 U.S. 1 (decided February 13, 1967): convicted of rape/murder of eight-year-old girl based on his “bloody underpants” presented at trial but prosecutor knew it was just red paint; habeas granted and conviction vacated

Interstate Circuit v. United States, 306 U.S. 208 (decided February 13, 1939): This is one of many cases on whether motion picture distribution agreements violate antitrust laws. I mention it because of the wonderful sentence: “The production of weak evidence when strong is available can lead only to the conclusion that the strong would have been adverse.” Id. at 226. In my practice I never have read SCOTUS cases, but I quote this every chance I get.