Opinion of the Court. Mr. John L. Cadwalader for plaintiff in error. Mr. Austen G. Fox for defendant in error. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court. After stating the facts as above recited, he continued: The petition for removal was filed under the last clause of § 2 of the act of 1875, 18 Stat. 471, which is as follows: "And when in any suit . . . there shall be a controversy which is wholly between citizens of different States, and which can be fully determined as between them, then either one or more of the plaintiffs or defendants, actually interested in such controversy, may remove said suit into the Circuit Court of the United States for the proper district." As we have already said at this term in Ayres v. Wiswall, 112 U. S. 187, 192, "the rule is now well established that this clause in the section refers only to suits where there exists a separate and distinct cause of action, on which a separate and distinct suit might have been brought and complete relief afforded as to such cause of action, with all the parties on one side of that controversy citizens of different States from those on the other. To say the least, the case must be one capable of separation into parts, so that in one of the parts a controversy will be presented with citizens of one or more States on one side, and citizens of different States on the other, which can be fully determined without the presence of the other parties to the suit as it has been begun." Hyde v. Ruble, 104 U. S. 407; Frazer v. Jennison, 106 U. S. 191. In the present case all the defendants are sued jointly and as joint contractors. There is more than one contract set out in the complaint, and there is therefore more than one cause of action embraced in the suit, but all the contracts are alleged to be joint and binding on all the defendants, jointly and in the same right. There is no pretence of a separate cause of action in favor of the plaintiff and against the Louisville and Nashville Company alone. The answer of the company treats the several causes of action alike and makes the same defence Opinion of the Court. to all. For the purposes of the present enquiry the case stands as it would if the complaint contained but a single cause of action. The claim of right to a removal is based entirely on the fact that the Louisville and Nashville Company, the petitioning defendant, has presented a separate defence to the joint action by filing a separate answer tendering separate issues for trial. This, it has been frequently decided, is not enough to introduce a separate controversy into the suit within the meaning of the statute. Hyde v. Ruble, supra; Ayres v. Wiswall, supra. Separate answers by the several defendants sued on joint causes of action may present different questions for determination, but they do not necessarily divide the suit into separate controversies. A defendant has no right to say that an action shall be several which a plaintiff elects to make joint. Smith v. Rines, 2 Sumner, 348. A separate defence may defeat a joint recovery, but it cannot deprive a plaintiff of his right to prosecute his own suit to final determination in his own way. The cause of action is the subject matter of the controversy, and that is for all the purposes of the suit whatever the plaintiff declares it to be in his pleadings. Here it is certain joint contracts entered into by all the defendants for the transportation of property. On the one side of the controversy upon that cause of action is the plaintiff, and on the other all the defendants. The separate defences of the defendants relate only to their respective interests in the one controversy. The controversy is the case, and the case is not divisible. It is said, however, that by the New York Code of Civil Procedure, § 1204, "judgment may be given for or against one or more plaintiffs, and for or against one or more defendants," and under this it has been held that when several are sued upon a joint contract, and it appears that only a portion are bound, the plaintiff may recover against those who are actually liable. The same rule undoubtedly prevails in many other States, but this does not make a joint contract several, nor divide a joint suit into separate parts. It may expedite judicial proceedings and save costs, but it does not change the form of the controversy, that is to say, the case. The plaintiff Statement of Facts. can still sue to recover from all, though he may be able to suc ceed only as to a part. The order remanding the case is Affirmed. MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD took no part in the decision of this case. PUTNAM & Another v. INGRAHAM. IN ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT. Submitted March 2, 1885.-Decided March 23, 1885. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Ide, ante, 52, affirmed. This was a writ of error for the review of an order of the Circuit Court remanding a suit to a State court. The suit was brought in the Superior Court of the County of Hartford, Connecticut, by George E. Ingraham, the defendant in error, a citizen of Connecticut, against N. D. Putnam and Henry Earle, citizens of New York, and W. G. Morgan, a citizen of Connecticut, as partners in business under the name of Putnam, Earle & Co., to recover a balance claimed to be due from the partnership on an account for money lent, paid out and expended, and upon a note of $5,000 made by W. G. Morgan to the order of Putnam, Earle & Co., and by the firm indorsed to Ingraham. The complaint contained simply the common. counts, but a bill of particulars subsequently filed disclosed the true nature of the claim to be the note, and an account for the purchase and sale of stocks beginning August 17, 1883, and ending February 29, 1884. The defendants, Putnam and Earle, filed a separate answer, which contained-1. A general denial of all the allegations in the complaint; 2. An averment as to the account, that the alleged loans were all made to the defendant Morgan for his individual and private use, and not to the firm; 3. An averment as to the note, that it was given for money loaned to W. Statement of Facts. G. Morgan alone for his individual use, and not to the firm, and that it was indorsed by Morgan in the name of the firm by collusion between him and Ingraham, and with intent to defraud Putnam and Earle; and, 4. A statement that the partnership of Putnam, Earle & Co. was not formed until January 2, 1884, and that all the transactions in the bill of particulars before that date took place, if at all, between the plaintiff and William G. Morgan, who, during the years 1882 and 1883, was only the agent of Putnam and Earle, and not a partner with them, and that as to none of the items in the bill, dated in the year 1883, were they under any joint liability with Morgan as partners. Morgan never answered the complaint, and as to him the case stood on default. After filing their answer the defendants, Putnam and Earle, presented a petition to the Superior Court for the removal of the suit to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut. The material part of this petition, aside from a statement of the citizenship of the parties, was as follows: "And your petitioners further say, that in the suit above mentioned there is a controversy which is wholly between citizens of different States, and which can be fully determined between them, to wit, a controversy between the present petitioners, N. D. Putnam and Henry Earle, and the said George E. Ingraham and William G. Morgan, as by the pleadings in said cause will more fully appear." Upon the presentation of this petition the Superior Court declined to enter an order for the removal of the cause. Thereupon the petitioners entered a copy of the record in the Circuit Court of the United States. This being done, the plaintiff Ingraham moved that court to remand the suit, and the motion was granted. To reverse an order to that effect this writ of error was brought. Mr. Lewis E. Stanton, Mr. Herbert E. Dickson, and Mr. Edward W. Bell for plaintiffs in error. Mr. Charles E. Perkins for defendant in error. Opinion of the Court. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court. After stating the facts as above recited, he continued: We are unable to distinguish this case materially from that of The Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Ide, just decided. The suit is brought against all the defendants jointly to recover upon what are alleged to be their joint promises and undertakings. The defendants, who are not citizens of Connecticut, have filed a separate answer in which they deny their liability altogether, and claim besides that, if liable at all on part of the account sued for, it is not jointly with the defendant Morgan. This is their separate defence to the joint suit which Ingraham has elected to bring against them and Morgan upon what he claims to be the joint contracts of all the defendants. In Connecticut, as in New York, "judgment may be given for or against one or more of several plaintiffs, and for or against one or more of several defendants," and in addition to this the court may, in Connecticut, "determine the ultimate rights of the parties on each side as between themselves and grant to the defendant any affirmative relief he may be entitled to." But this, as we have said in the case just decided, does not make a joint contract several, nor divide a joint suit into separate parts. The suit is still one and indivisible for the purposes of removal. The fact that Morgan has not answered but is in default is unimportant. The suit is still on joint causes of action, and the plaintiff, if he sustains the allegations of his complaint at the trial, will be entitled to a joint judgment against all the defendants. The default places the parties in no different position with reference to a removal than they would occupy if Morgan had answered and set up an entirely different defence from that of the other defendants. A separate controversy is not introduced into the case by separate defences to the same cause of action. As the petitioning defendants have asked no affirmative relief either against the plaintiff or their co-defendant, no question can arise under the rule of practice in Connecticut which allows the court to determine the ultimate rights of the parties on each |