Buckley v. Personnel Support Systems, Inc.

852 So. 2d 648, 2003 Miss. App. LEXIS 65, 2003 WL 282807
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedFebruary 11, 2003
DocketNo. 2001-CA-01934-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 852 So. 2d 648 (Buckley v. Personnel Support Systems, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Buckley v. Personnel Support Systems, Inc., 852 So. 2d 648, 2003 Miss. App. LEXIS 65, 2003 WL 282807 (Mich. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinion

McMILLIN, C.J.,

for the court.

¶ 1. At issue in this case is the authority of the Circuit Court of Jones County to adjudicate the competing rights of various parties to a garnishment proceeding begun when the clerk of that court issued a writ of garnishment on a judgment ostensibly rendered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. The circuit court ultimately dismissed the garnishment proceeding on two alternative grounds, both of which the court found sufficient, standing alone, to support its decision. These alternative reasons dealt with matters of personal jurisdiction over the garnishee and subject matter jurisdiction and we treat the order of dismissal that is the basis of this appeal as being a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction. While we agree with the circuit court that the case must be decided on matters relating to its jurisdiction, we conclude that the pivotal question of jurisdiction is more fundamental than those offered by the circuit court in support of its ruling. Thus, we find it appropriate to affirm the circuit court’s decision to dismiss though our reasoning for doing so is different.

[649]*649i.

Facts

¶ 2. This Court has had some difficulty in setting out the facts of this case since certain of the critical factual assertions upon which this case turns do not appear from the evidence but, rather, must be gleaned from a review of the pleadings and an analysis of whether certain facts asserted in the pleadings are, or are not, affirmatively contested by the opposing party. Our statement of the facts is, therefore, more properly seen as a collection of unchallenged assertions.

¶ 3. This case had its beginnings as a personal injury suit brought in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi by William L. Buckley, Sr., the appellant in this proceeding. In the federal court proceeding, Buckley obtained a judgment against a certain Cliff L. Nuckols in the amount of $1,358,397.84. The judgment remained unsatisfied on November 6, 1995, when Buckley filed a suggestion for garnishment in the Circuit Court of Jones County reciting the fact of his federal court judgment and suggesting that a corporation doing business under the name of Personnel Support Systems, Inc. (hereafter “Personnel”) was indebted to the judgment debtor Nuckols. Buckley requested that a writ of garnishment issue returnable to the Jones County Circuit Court commanding Personnel to answer and make the appropriate disclosures required under Mississippi’s garnishment statutes.

¶ 4. It is apparently conceded by Buckley that, at the time the writ of garnishment was issued, no effort had been made to enroll the federal court judgment on the Jones County judgment roll. Neither does it appear from the record as to why the Jones County Circuit Clerk was selected by Buckley to issue the writ of garnishment. No allegation appears anywhere in the record before us that Buckley resides in that county or that Personnel has any property in that county or has ever done business there. No allegation is made as to the state of domicile of Personnel. Additionally, insofar as the record now before us reveals, no effort has been made by Buckley to belatedly enroll this judgment (although, for reasons that will appear elsewhere in this opinion, we do not conclude that a supplementation of the record to show that such untimely action may have been taken would alter the result we reach in this case).

¶ 5. Buckley somehow prevailed upon the Jones County Circuit Clerk to issue the writ of garnishment and sought the assistance of a process server, Mitchell Blakeney, to serve the writ by certified mail, return receipt requested, sent to “Personnel Support Systems, Inc., 810 Matson Place, Suite 1006, Cincinnati, Ohio 45204-1446.” According to a certified mail receipt filed in this cause on October 20, 1995, that mailing was received by an individual identified only as “W. McDonald.” There is no indication in the record as to who that individual was or what relationship, if any, he may have had to Personnel. On November 5, 1995, Blakeney, as process server, executed a return verifying that he had caused the documents to be mailed to Personnel and that the green receipt card was “signed by Defendant.” Blakeney’s return contains no allegation that he was personally acquainted with W. McDonald or knew, of his own knowledge, that McDonald was a representative of Personnel authorized to accept service on its behalf. Nevertheless, on the strength of Blakeney’s return and Personnel’s subsequent failure to answer the writ, the Circuit Court of Jones County entered a judgment against Personnel in the amount of $1,362,644.28.

[650]*650¶ 6. After Buckley commenced subsequent proceedings in Jones County Circuit Court in an attempt to satisfy his newly-obtained judgment against Personnel, that corporation belatedly filed a motion to set aside the judgment rendered against it. Personnel attacked the validity of the judgment on numerous grounds, including the insufficiency of the service of process and Mississippi’s lack of in personam jurisdiction over the corporation. The circuit court ultimately granted Personnel’s motion and dismissed the garnishment proceeding with prejudice. The circuit court concluded that there were at least two legally sufficient grounds to so rule.

¶ 7. First, the court found that there was no evidence demonstrating that “W. McDonald” was a representative of Personnel authorized to receive service in its behalf under Mississippi Rule of Civil Procedure 4(d)(4). Secondly, the court found that Buckley’s failure to have the judgment enrolled on the Jones County judgment roll prior to seeking the issuance of the writ rendered the subsequent judgment based on the unanswered writ of garnishment void as a matter of law. The court finally offered the view that, in all likelihood, the assertion of lack of in personam jurisdiction over Personnel was an additional valid basis to set the judgment aside, but found it unnecessary to reach a definite answer on that issue for the reason that the two earlier grounds offered were sufficient grounds to support the result.

¶ 8. It is from that judgment that Buckley has perfected this appeal. Buckley’s contention is that Personnel, by various pleadings filed in this cause, had entered a general appearance that rendered moot any question concerning the legitimacy of the original service of process. As to the second ground, Buckley contends that the enrollment of the judgment on the judgment rolls of the county is a purely ministerial act, and that the failure to accomplish such an act may be cured at any time and, thus, also subject to waiver if not raised in a timely manner.

II.

Discussion

¶ 9. We conclude, on the facts of this case, that the circuit court lacked any authority to entertain this enforcement action of a judgment rendered in federal district court. The essential failing in this case appears, in our view, to arise from Buckley’s confusion of two different, though perhaps related, procedures by which a judgment may be given some effect in a particular county when the judgment was not rendered by the circuit court of that county.

¶ 10. The first procedure — the one that Buckley argues is applicable in this case— permits the holder of a judgment obtained “in any court of the United States held within this state” to cause an abstract of the judgment to be filed in the office of the circuit clerk of any county in the state. Miss.Code Ann.

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852 So. 2d 648, 2003 Miss. App. LEXIS 65, 2003 WL 282807, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/buckley-v-personnel-support-systems-inc-missctapp-2003.