Board of County Commissioners of the County of LeFlore v. District Court of Oklahoma County

1967 OK 67, 435 P.2d 157, 1967 Okla. LEXIS 388
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedMarch 7, 1967
DocketNo. 42245
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 1967 OK 67 (Board of County Commissioners of the County of LeFlore v. District Court of Oklahoma County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of County Commissioners of the County of LeFlore v. District Court of Oklahoma County, 1967 OK 67, 435 P.2d 157, 1967 Okla. LEXIS 388 (Okla. 1967).

Opinions

BLACKBIRD, Justice.

In this original action, the Board of County Commissioners of LeFlore County, sometimes referred to merely as the “Board” or “Petitioner”, has applied to this Court to assume original jurisdiction of an action now pending in the District Court within and for Oklahoma County, and has petitioned us to issue a writ of prohibition against said Court, the Honorable Glen O. Morris, Judge thereof, and the plaintiff in said action (hereinafter referred to collectively as “Respondents”) commanding said Court and the Judge not to proceed further in said action, as against the petitioner, and to issue such further directions as this court may deem proper.

The action referred to is said Court’s Cause No. 162,433, which was commenced sometime previous to February, 1966, by respondent “Hal B. McKnight, an individual d/b/a Mcknight construction COMPANY”, as plaintiff. The parties said plaintiff named as defendants in said action, were Martin Garber, and others, referred to as “individual members constituting and composing the State Highway Commission of the State of Oklahoma and DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA, F. D. Lyons, State Highway Director, Rex Collins and Harold F. Flood, co-partners d/b/a COLLINS & FLOOD, Architects & Engineers”, the LeFlore County Commissioners Board (petitioner herein) and one J. Paul Mathies, who was alleged to be one member of the latter Board.

[159]*159In said Cause No. 162,433, supra, the facts alleged in the pleadings of the plaintiff, hereinafter referred to merely as “McKnight”, concerned circumstances related to his construction, under two contracts with the State Highway Department, of two Federal-Aid Secondary, or Farm-to-Marlcet, road projects in LeFlore County, estimated by said County’s engineers, Collins & Flood, to cost considerably more than $100,000.00.

It may be reasonably inferred from McKnight’s pleaded allegations in Cause No. 162,433, supra, that he was delayed, and put to extra expense, in completing these contract jobs early in 1963, and that the State Department of Highways (sometimes referred to merely as “Highway Department”) not only denied his claim for reimbursement for these extra expenses, or costs, but when it paid him the contract price (upon his completion of the projects) it deducted a certain sum, or sums, as “liquidated damages.”

On the basis of the facts alleged in plaintiff’s petition, the Respondent Judge and Court, in February, 1966, sustained a motion to dismiss, filed by the Highway Department, on the ground of the court’s lack of jurisdiction to grant recovery against it, as an agency of the State. Recognizing that, after dismissal of the Highway Department and Commissioners, there was no defendant in the action that could be served in Oklahoma County, the other defendants, including the County Commissioners’ Board (now petitioning this court) moved to dismiss said action, as against them, on the ground that venue of the action could not be in Oklahoma County, without such a defendant. The Respondent Judge and Court sustained the motion, and dismissed the action against all remaining defendants, but thereafter, in March, 1966, sustained a motion by McKnight for a new trial. After other developments in the case, not necessary to mention, the petitioner filed the present action in this court.

The prinicpal issue presented herein is: What is the proper venue of an action like Cause No. 162,433, supra, against th'e petitioner herein, Board of County Commissioners of LeFlore County?

Petitioner relies principally on City of McAlester v. Fogg, Okl., 312 P.2d 867, and Tit. 12 O.S. 1961, § 134, which, in the cited case, we held governed the venue of the action there involved. The named City, being a corporation situated, and having “its principal office or place of business”, in Pittsburg County, we decided that the venue of that action was in that County. Respondents contend that our decision in that case is ineffective as support for petitioner’s position in this case, because the cause of action arose in the same county in which the City of McAlester is situated. They further say that the venue of Cause No. 162,-433, supra, is in Oklahoma County, and the respondent court, both under the last alternative proviso of § 134, supra (“ * * * or in the county where the cause of action or some part thereof arose") and under Tit. 12 O.S. 1961, § 154, which reads as follows:

“Where the action is rightly brought in any county, a summons shall be issued to any other county against any one or more of the defendants, at the plaintiff’s request.”

Neither of the parties to the present proceedings denies that the venue of an action against some of the defendants in cause No. 162,433, supra, such as the State Department of Highways, or its director, F. D. Lyons, is in the Respondent Court. (In this connection notice State ex rel. State Bd. of Ed. v. District Court of Bryan County, Okl, 290 P.2d 413). Therefore, assuming, without deciding, that McKnight’s pleadings state a cause of action against at least one of such defendants, that the venue of an action on such a cause is in Oklahoma County, and that Cause No. 162,433, supra, was therefore “rightly brought” in said County, it becomes necessary to inquire into the nature of the cause, or causes, of action, if any, that McKnight’s pleadings in that action state against these Oklahoma County defendants, as compared [160]*160to that stated against the Board of County-Commissioners of LeFlore County, since, under § 154, supra, the facts of the case must be such as to render both classes of defendants jointly liable (Knox v. McMillan, Old., 272 P.2d 1040, and other cases cited therein at p. 1043), and, under respondent’s interpretation of § 134, supra, “some part” of McKnight’s cause of action against the Commissioners’ Board must have arisen in Oklahoma County.

The nature of the cause, or causes, of action, if any, McKnight has pleaded in Cause No. 162,433, supra, may be determined from the résumé of his alleged facts set forth in the brief filed by respondents herein (omitting immaterial parts) as supplemented by the wording of his prayers for relief reflected in the petitioner’s brief. The respective portions of these briefs (beginning with respondent’s summary) referred to (which, as will be noted, differ in the immaterial matters of some of the amounts of money set forth therein) are as follows:

(Quotation from Respondents’ brief) :
“1) On January 18, 1961, the Board of County Commissioners of LeFlore County, Oklahoma initiated a program to construct a Farm-to-Market Road in Le-Flore County by submitting an appropriate Resolution to the Oklahoma Department of Highways in Oklahoma City. Thereafter, further Resolutions were submitted to the Highway Department, recognizing that the Oklahoma Statute (47 O.S. 22.2-e) provided that certain proceeds from License Tax and bus mileage Tax should be allocated to a Farm-to-Market and Secondary Road Fund, and requesting that the Highway Department use such money in construction of the designated project.
“2) The Oklahoma Highway Department, pursuant to Statute (68 O.S. 660(b) [660b], 669.3, 727.6, 732 and other applicable provisions, after advertising for bids, let contracts to McKnight for construction of two Secondary Projects involved herein.

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Related

Lane v. Cook
1979 OK 149 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1979)
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1972 OK 3 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1972)

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Bluebook (online)
1967 OK 67, 435 P.2d 157, 1967 Okla. LEXIS 388, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-county-commissioners-of-the-county-of-leflore-v-district-court-of-okla-1967.