
    CUMBERLAND GAP BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATION v. WELLS & ELLERBEE.
    July 13, 1896. By two Justices.
    Petition to remove cause. Before Judge Smith. Wilcox superior court. September term, 1895.
    Wells & Ellerbee brought a petition against the defendant of Cumberland Gap, Tenn., praying for an injunction to prevent it from selling certain property under a deed, or from bringing an action on said deed, or on the note given therewith, for decree cancelling the deed, and for judgment against defendant for $5,000 damages. The petition was brought on March 13, 1895. On August 3, 1895, the defendant company presented its petition to the superior court, accompanied by its bond, alleging that the suit was of a civil nature in which there was a controversy wholly between citizens of different States, plaintiffs being citizens of Georgia and defendant a citizen of Tennessee; and praying for a removal of the case to the Circuit Court of the United States. Thereupon the plaintiffs amended their declaration so as to strike the prayer for $5,000 damages, praying in lieu thereof for $1,800 for their damages. To this amendment defendant objected, but the same was allowed, and the petition for removal denied. Defendant excepted.
   Lumpkin, J.

The right to remove a cause from a State to a Federal court being complete as the case stood upon the filing of the plaintiff’s declaration, the defendant’s right of removal cannot be taken away by any subsequent amendment by the plaintiff reducing the amount of the debt or damages for which the action was originally brought, so as to render the claim for a sum less than the requisite jurisdictional amount in the Federal court. Jones et al. v. Foreman et al., 66 Ga. 372; Dillon on Removal of Causes, §§96, 138. Judgment reversed.

Dessau & Hodges, for plaintiff in error.  