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Louis & Nash. RR v. West. Un. Tel. Co., 237 U.S. 300 (1915)
Louis & Nash. RR v. West. Un. Tel. Co., 237 U.S. 300 (1915)
300
35 S.Ct. 598
59 L.Ed. 956
If the jurisdiction below was dependent entirely upon the opposite parties being
citizens of different states,the telegraph company of New York, the railroad
of Kentucky,this writ of error must be dismissed under 128 of the Judicial
Code. Act of March 3, 1911, chap. 231, 36 Stat. at L. 1087, Comp. Stat. 1913,
968, 1120. The only basis for any other ground of jurisdiction is the
unexplained averment of acceptance of the act of 1866. The question is whether
that averment discloses such a ground.
3
The only other that occurs to us is that, under the statutes of Louisiana as
construed, the telegraph company could not maintain this suit if, by the law
creating it, it was prohibited from operating in Louisiana, and that the power
given by the act of 1866 excluded such a prohibition and brought the company
within the benefit of the Louisiana expropriation statute. As we have said, the
purpose of the allegation is not explained, and the plaintiff did not admit the
necessity of resorting to laws other than those of New York for its powers. But
supposing, without implying, that the statute of 1866 had to be relied upon to
bring the telegraph company within the Louisiana act, and would have that
effect, still it would not be a ground of jurisdiction. If the jurisdiction of the
United States court does not depend entirely upon diversity of citizenship, it is
because the suit arises under the laws of the United States. Judicial Code, 24.
But when, as here, the foundation of the right claimed is a state law, the suit to
assert it arises under the state law none the less that the state law has attached a
condition that only alien legislation can fulfil. The state law is the sole
determinant of the conditions supposed, and its reference elsewhere for their
fulfilment is like the reference to a document that it adopts and makes part of
itself. The suit is not maintained by virtue of the act of Congress, but by virtue
of the Louisiana statute that allows itself to be satisfied by that act. See
Interstate Consol. Street R. Co. v. Massachusetts, 207 U. S. 79, 84, 52 L. ed.
111, 114, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 26, 12 Ann. Cas. 555.