Horace Gray

“ The ascertaining of those interests, and the assessment of those damages, were but incidents to the principal controversy, and did not make that controversy divisible, so that the right of either defendant could be fully determined by itself, apart from the right of the other defendant, and from the main issue between both defendants on the one side and the plaintiff on the other. Safe-Deposit Co. ”

“ But that court refused to remand the case, solely because in its opinion there was a separable controversy between the petitioning defendant and the original plaintiff.
In this the circuit court erred. The object of the suit was to condemn and appropriate to the public use a single lot of land, and not (as in Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. City of Kansas, 115 U.S. 2, 22, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1113, cited by the defendant) several lots of land, each owned by a different person. The cause of action alleged, and consequently the subject-matter of the controversy, was whether the whole lot should be condemned ”