James Madison Love
Judge Love no longer hears cases. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled.
How Judge Love decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Love required removal papers to state concrete jurisdictional facts, especially the identity and citizenship of every partner.
“Citizenship cannot be predicated of a firm eo nomine.”
He distinguished lawful option contracts from wagers by asking whether the parties genuinely intended delivery and payment.
“The validity of ‘option’ contracts depends upon the mutual intentions of the parties.”
Procedural preferences
When jurisdiction was doubtful, Love preferred remand to a tribunal whose authority was unquestioned.
“It is the safer and wiser course to send a cause for trial to a court of unquestionable jurisdiction, rather than retain it here”
He generally allowed disputed interrogatories to be answered unless their irrelevance was manifest at the outset.
“The safer course is to allow the interrogatory to be answered in any doubtful case, and determine the objections to it at the hearing”
Cautions
Love treated railroads as public-service corporations whose operational choices remained subject to duties owed to shippers and connecting carriers.
“Whoever, in my opinion, in a legal proceeding considers a railway company as a corporation for mere pecuniary profit to the owners of the property, without taking into account their character as quasi public corporations having public duties to perform, takes a view of the subject altogether narrow and misleading.”
He would not use equity to interrupt the ordinary course of state criminal enforcement.
“Courts of equity, therefore, deal only with civil and property rights.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“remanding the cause to the circuit court of Wapello county, Iowa.”
“The exceptions to the master’s report will be overruled and a decree entered for the complainant.”
“For these reasons I deem it much the wiser course for all parties concerned to remand these causes to the state court.”
“the motion to remand must be overruled with leave to the plaintiff to plead' in abatement as above indicated.”
“The defendant’s motion is sustained, and the reference ordered, with the foregoing instructions.”
“We certainly would not, under such circumstances, reverse and set aside onr own order, and we shall not reverse and set aside that of the state judge without some further and more cogent evidence that it was erroneously or improvidentlv made.”
“the averments in the record are insufficient to give this court jurisdiction, and the motion to remand must be sustained.”
“The application in the present case is denied.”
“The mandatory injunction against the defendant company and its chief officers as prayed for will be granted”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
No electronic case-level docket exists for Love’s tenure. The profile therefore makes no claim about complete caseload mix, duration, administrative dispositions, or motion timing.
A historical record
Judge Love no longer hears cases. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.