It was well settled before the Act of 1875 that when the citizenship necessary for the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States appeared on the face of the record, evidence to the contradict the record was not admissible, except under a plea in abatement in the nature of a plea to the jurisdiction, and that a plea to the merits was a waiver of such plea to the jurisdiction. Farmington v Pillsbury [ante, 114], and cases there cited. In its general scope this rule has not been altered by the Act of 1875, . . . . we held in Williams v. Nottawa, 104 U.S. 209, 211, [Bk. 26, L.Ed. 719, 720], that the statute changed the rule so far as to allow the court at any time without plea and without motion, to stop all further proceedings and dismiss the suit the moment a fraud on its jurisdiction was discovered. Neither party has the right, however, without pleading at the proper time and in the proper way, to introduce evidence, the only purpose of which is to make out a case for dismissal. The parties cannot call on the court to go behind the averments of citizenship in the record, except by a plea to the jurisdiction or some other appropriate form of proceeding. The case is not to be tried by the parties as if there was a plea to the jurisdiction, when no such plea has been filed. The evidence must be directed to the issues, and it is only when facts material to the issues show there is no jurisdiction that the court can dismiss the case upon the motion of either party. If in the course of a trial it appears by evidence, which is admissible under the pleadings and pertinent to the issues joined, that the suit does not really and substantially involve a dispute of which the court has cognizance, or that the parties have been improperly or collusively made or joined for the purpose of creating a cognizable case, the court may stop all proceedings and dismiss the suit. Beyond this, no doubt, if, from any source, the court is led to suspect that its jurisdiction has been imposed upon by the collusion of the parties or in any other way, it may at once of its own motion cause the necessary inquiry to be made, either by having the proper joined and tried, or by some other appropriate form of proceeding, and act as justice may require, of its own protection against fraud or imposition. [William Hartog v. Henry Memory] [116 U.S. 725, 726 (1886)] # # #
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William Hartog v. Henry Memory