Ashley v. Quintard

90 F. 84, 10 Ohio F. Dec. 365, 1898 U.S. App. LEXIS 1674
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern Ohio
DecidedOctober 3, 1898
DocketNo. 1,424
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 90 F. 84 (Ashley v. Quintard) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ashley v. Quintard, 90 F. 84, 10 Ohio F. Dec. 365, 1898 U.S. App. LEXIS 1674 (circtndoh 1898).

Opinion

HAMMOND, J.

(after stating the facts). Technically, perhaps,this motion should he decided solely upon the answer of the garnishee, which is not at all full in its statement of the facts, though it sufficiently appears by that document that the defendants are citizens of New York and nonresidents in Ohio, while the railroad company is only a Michigan corporation. But even that is not stated in the answer of the garnishee, but rather stands upon the agreement of counsel in argument that it is not incorporated in Ohio as it might be in both states. We find the fact to be that it is solely a Michigan corporation. It seems to be conceded by counsel for the motion that the shares of stock would be leviable either in Michigan, the corporate domicile of the company, or in-New York, the residence of the owners of the shares. Apart from any authoritative adjudication on the subject, it is not very clear, considering the nature of shares of corporate stock, if it be leviable in New York, why it may not likewise be leviable in Ohio, or any other state, if service could be had upon the garnishee company. Merely because the debtors in execution or attachment reside in New York, and because that state may be taken as the situs of the shares for some of the purposes of ownership, such as the peculiar nature of the property permits, — as, for example, bequest by will or distribution after death intestate, or for taxation, and the like, — it does not follow that the shares may be subjected to the process of execution or attachment in that state, any more than other tangible or intangible personal property the debtors might own which happened, in fact, to be within the boundaries of the state of Michigan; wherefore the ultimate logic of the doctrine contended for by counsel for the motion must be that shares of stock are leviable only in the state where the company has its corporate domicile, or else in any state where there can be service on the company. Public policy would seem to favor the former rule, particularly as to quasi public corporations, and those which, like railroads, are practically perpetuated in their existence in one way or another. It would be a convenience and source of safety to have one place only to which all might resort to effectuate by sale under judicial process any enforced change of title or ownership of the shares. If that should require the plaintiff here to go first to New York for his judgment, and then to Michigan for another judgment, it would only be a result common to legal procedure; and the same'result that would be found necessary if the same debtors owned other property located in Michigan. . Perhaps one suit in Michigan, the corporate domicile, furnished by a law of that state authorizing nonresidents to be sued as to any property located there, might suffice. The case of Jellenik v. Mining Co., 82 [87]*87Fed. 778, is not: against this doctrine, but rather in favor of it. There our Brother Severens held that plaintiffs, claiming that the shareholders held their shares fraudulently as against them, could not, in Michigan, try that question with shareholders nonresident there, under the laws of Michigan in that behalf. They first must go to the state of residence, settle the title there, and then to Michigan to compel a transfer, if the personal jurisdiction over the shareholders at their residence would not secure complete relief by compelling the transfer, there. The truth is that the peculiar characteristic of shares of stock, united with the misfortune of having one’s debtor owning property in foreign parts, combine to present difficulties in litigation concerning the shares which, cannot be overcome, except in some such manner as that suggested by Judge Severens. .Possibly they may be insuperable difficulties without special legislation to remedy them, but that is the reason for the existence of legislatures,—to provide remedies as the necessities for them arise. It does not follow from his decision that executions and attachments against nonresident shareholders cannot be had in Michigan. If so, however, it only shows that further legislation may be needed there to give relief as against nonresident shareholders in Michigan corporations.

Even if it should result that shares in a corporation in another state than that in which the debtor resides cannot lie subjected to execution or attachment for his debts, because there can be no personal service of summons on and judgment against him in that state upon which to base an execution, and that no attachment could be made effectual, that should not influence the courts in deciding such questions as this, for the reason that they can neither legislate nor impress a different qualify upon property than it possesses inherently from the sources of its creation or origin. One must deal with the corporation itself in some form to subject shares of stock to judicial process against their owners, and it may be difficult to And the corporation for that purpose elsewhere than in the corporate domicile, particularly since the latest decisions of the supreme court seem to establish that it can have only one domicile or habitation for the purposes of suits against it, so far as federal jurisdiction is concerned, at least. Railroad Co. v. James, 161 U. S. 545, 563, 16 Sup. Ct. 621; Railroad Co. v. Steele, 167 U. S. 659, 17 Sup. Ct. 925; U. S. v. Northwestern Exp. Stage & Transp. Co., 164 U. S. 686, 689, 17 Sup. Ct. 206; Steamship Co. v. Kane, 170 U. S. 100, 106, 111, 18 Sup. Ct. 526; Railway Co. v. Gonzales, 151 U. S. 496, 14 Sup. Ct. 401; Shaw v. Mining Co., 145 U. S. 444, 12 Sup. Ct. 935; In re Keasbey, 160 U. S. 221, 229, 16 Sup. Ct. 273. Under the existing judiciary act, the plaintiff, being an inhabitant of Ohio, might have brought this suit in this court originally, but he would have required personal service to reach the defendants. Having sued them in (he state court, he might attach any property of theirs found in Ohio, and the question is whether his attachment has found their shares of stock in a Michigan corporation in Ohio. If it has nol, they may move here to discharge the service made in the state court. Railway v. Brow, 164 U. S. 271, 17 Sup. Ct. 126.

How did (he shares of stock become located in Ohio, and subjected to the quite absolute dominion of the laws of that state over any prop[88]*88erty situated within its boundaries? Certainly, if the corporation is not an Ohio corporation, the shares are not here in that sense. If the owners are not citizens of Ohio, they are not here in the sense that the situs of the shares is that of the domicile of the owners. They can be here, then, only because the corporation is doing business in Ohio, and operates a railroad within its limits.

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Bluebook (online)
90 F. 84, 10 Ohio F. Dec. 365, 1898 U.S. App. LEXIS 1674, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ashley-v-quintard-circtndoh-1898.