Opinion of the Court. in its nature a removable one until after the time mentioned in the act has expired, that it cannot be removed at all. In Northern Pacific Railroad v. Austin, 135 U. S. 315, where a plaintiff suing in an inferior court of a State had laid his damages at less than the sum necessary to authorize a removal into the Circuit Court of the United States and was permitted at the trial to increase the ad damnum above that sum, and judgment of the district court was affirmed by the highest court of the State, a writ of error to that court was dismissed by this court, solely because no application for removal had been made after the allowance of the amendment; and the Chief Justice, in delivering the opinion, said: "If the application had been made, the question would then have arisen whether it came too late under the circumstances. The defendant was not entitled to remove the suit, as originally brought, 'before or at the term at which such cause could be first tried, and before the trial thereof. But the objection to removal, depending upon the absence of the jurisdictional amount, was obviated by the amendment. As the time within which a removal must be applied for is not jurisdictional, but modal and formal, Ayers v. Watson, 113 U. S. 594, 598, it may, though obligatory to a certain extent, be waived; and as, where a removal is effected, the party who obtains it is estopped upon the question of the time, so, if the conduct of the plaintiff in a given case were merely a device to prevent a removal, it might be that the objection as to the time could not be raised by him." 135 U. S. 318. The question whether a defendant may file, in the state court in which the suit was commenced, a petition for removal, after the time mentioned in the act of Congress has elapsed, in a case which was not removable when that time expired, is now directly presented for adjudication; and the answer to this question depends upon the terms and effect of the act in force when these proceedings took place. In order to warrant a removal from a court of a State into a Circuit Court of the United States, according to the terms of that act, the necessary diverse citizenship or other foundation of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the United States Opinion of the Court. must exist. It is only when that does exist, that "any party entitled to remove any suit" "may make and file a petition in such suit in such state court at the time, or at any time before the defendant is required by the laws of the State, or the rule of the state court in which such suit is brought, to answer or plead to the declaration or complaint of the plaintiff, for the removal of such suit into the Circuit Court to be held in the District where such suit is pending," and to give bond to file a copy of the record in that court " on the first day of its then next session." Act of March 3, 1887, c. 373, as corrected by act of August 13, 1888, c. 866; 25 Stat. 435. This provision clearly manifests the intention of Congress that the petition for removal should be filed at the earliest possible opportunity. But, so long as there does not appear of record to be any removable controversy, no party can be entitled to remove it, and the provision of the act of Congress, that "any party entitled to remove any suit," "may make and file a petition for removal" at or before the time when he is required to make answer to the suit, cannot be literally applied. To construe that provision as restricting, to the time prescribed for answering the declaration, the removal of a case which is not a removable one at that time, would not only be inconsistent with the words of the statute; but it would utterly defeat all right of removal in many cases; as, for instance, whenever citizens of the same State as the plaintiff were joined as defendants through an honest mistake, not discovered by the plaintiff until after the time prescribed for answering; or whenever a personal injury was supposed, at the time of bringing an action therefor, to be a comparatively trifling one, which might be fully compensated by a sum much less than $2000, and was afterwards discovered to be so much graver, that there could be no doubt of the power and the duty of the court to allow an amendment increasing the ad damпит. The reasonable construction of the act of Congress, and the onty one which will prevent the right of removal, to which the statute declares the party to be entitled, from being defeated by circumstances wholly beyond his control, is to hold Opinion of the Court. that the incidental provision as to the time must, when necessary to carry out the purpose of the statute, yield to the principal enactment as to the right; and to consider the statute as, in intention and effect, permitting and requiring the defendant to file a petition for removal as soon as the action assumes the shape of a removable case in the court in which it was brought. The result is that, when this plaintiff discontinued his action as against the individual defendants, the case for the first time became such a one as, by the express terms of the statute, the defendant railway company was entitled to remove; and therefore its petition for removal, filed immediately upon such discontinuance, was filed in due time. A petition for removal, when presented to the state court, becomes part of the record of that court, and must doubtless show, taken in connection with the other matters on that record, the jurisdictional facts upon which the right of removal depends; because, if those facts are not made to appear upon the record of that court, it is not bound or authorized to surrender its jurisdiction, and if it does, the Circuit Court of the United States cannot allow an amendment of the petition, but must remand the case. Crehore v. Ohio & Mississippi Railway, 131 U. S. 240; Jackson v. Allen, 132 U. S. 27. But if, upon the face of the petition and of the whole record of the state court, sufficient grounds for removal are shown, the petition may be amended in the Circuit Court of the United States, by leave of that court, by stating more fully and distinctly the facts which support those grounds. Carson v. Dunham, 121 U. S. 421, 427; Martin v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 151 U. S. 673, 690, 691. In the case at bar, the second petition for removal, as presented to the state court, alleged that the petitioner was a citizen of the States of Virginia and West Virginia only, that the plaintiff was a citizen of the State of Kentucky, that Evans and Hickey had been fraudulently and improperly joined as defendants for the purpose of defeating the petitioner's right of removal, that because of their joinder the case had been remanded to the state court, and that the action, Opinion of the Court. - having been discontinued against them, was now for the first time pending against the petitioner alone; and by the transcript, previously filed in the state court, of the record of the proceedings in the Circuit Court of the United States upon the first petition for removal, containing the opinion and order remanding the case, it appeared to have been admitted that the individual defendants were citizens of Kentucky. It was thus made to appear, upon the record of the state court, that the case could not have been removed before, and that it had now become in its nature removable by reason of the diverse citizenship of the parties. Such being the case, it was rightly removed by the second petition for removal into the Circuit Court of the United States; and this petition was. rightly permitted to be amended in that court. The petition, as amended, distinctly alleged that Evans was a citizen of Virginia, that Boyer and Hickey were both citizens of Kentucky, and that by the discontinuance against them the action was for the first time pending against the railway. company alone; and thus showed a case which the railway company was entitled to remove, independently of the allegations that these persons had been fraudulently joined as defendants to defeat the right of removal, and that the plaintiff was therefore estopped to deny that the second petition for removal was filed in time. We do not find it necessary to pass upon the points of fraudulent joinder and of estoppel, made by the railway company, and upon which the Circuit Court of the United States proceeded in retaining jurisdiction of the case, because, for the reasons before stated, we are of opinion that, upon the true construction of the act of Congress, the petition, filed as soon as the case became a removable one, and before the railway company took any new steps in defence of the action, was seasonably filed; and that it sufficiently stated grounds for removal, and was therefore rightly permitted to be amended. It is hardly necessary to add that the railway company, by making defence in the state court after that court had declined to surrender jurisdiction of the case, did not lose or Syllabus. impair its right to insist that the case had been lawfully removed into the Circuit Court of the United States. The defendant, notwithstanding its objection, duly saved upon the record, to the jurisdiction of the state court, having been forced to a hearing in that court, is entitled to have the error in this respect corrected in any court having jurisdiction for the purpose. Removal Cases, 100 U. S. 457, 475; Edrington v. Jefferson, 111 U. S. 770, 774. Judgment affirmed. UNION MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY υ. KIRCHOFF. ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS. No. 155. Argued December 16, 17, 1897. - Decided January 10, 1898. The defendant in error filed a bill against the plaintiff in error in a state court in Illinois to compel the performance of a contract to convey to her land in that State. The case proceeded to judgment in plaintiff's favor in the Supreme Court of the State, but was remanded with directions to take an account for the purpose of ascertaining for how much payment should be directed. A writ of error, sued out from this court to review that judgment was dismissed here on the ground that the judgment was not final. It does not appear that any right or title had been specially set up or claimed under any statute of, or authority exercised under, the United States in the courts below, or in the Supreme Court of Illinois, prior to such judgment of that Court. It appeared on the second hearing that prior to September 10, 1884, the United States had seized the property for revenue taxes due from a firm then occupying it as a distillery, the defendant in error being in no way connected with the firm, that the property was sold, the Government bidding it in and taking a deed for it, and that the Government conveyed to the plaintiff in error. In the account stated the defendant in error was required to repay the amount so paid with interest. It also appeared that the plaintiff in error, after the case went back, moved to amend its answer by setting up that fitle, as a right and title acquired and claimed under the Constitution, statutes and authority of the United States, which motion was refused, and the trial court disposed of the case on other grounds. In the Appellate Court and in the Supreme Court the plaintiff in error contended that there was error in refusing its motion; but the Appellate Court held, and |