Horace Gray

“ Various grounds taken by the defendant in error in support of the judgment below need not be considered, because there is one decisive reason against the maintenance of the action.
By the law of England, and of those states of the Union whose jurisprudence is based upon the common law, an action for trespass upon land, like an action to recover the title or the possession of the land itself, is a local action, and can only be brought within the state in which the land lies. ”

“ But the petition, as amended by the plaintiff on motion of the defendant, and by order and leave of the court, contained a single count, alleging a continuing trespass upon the land by the defendant, through its agents, and its cutting and conversion of timber growing thereon. This allegation was of a single cause of action, in which the trespass upon the land was the principal thing, and the conversion of the timber was incidental only, and could not, therefore, be maintained by proof of the conversion of personal property without also proving the trespass upon real estate. ”

“ Harvesting Mach. Co., 86 Wis. 142, 56 N. W. 743. The entire cause of action was local. The land alleged to have been trespassed upon being in West Virginia, the action could not be maintained in Ohio. The circuit court of the United States, sitting in Ohio, had no jurisdiction of the cause of action, and for this reason, if for no other, rightly ordered the case to be stricken from its docket, although no question of jurisdiction had been made by demurrer or plea. British South Africa Co. ”