Camp v. Cities Service Gas Co.

17 F. Supp. 618, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1664
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Oklahoma
DecidedDecember 14, 1936
DocketNo. 6124
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 17 F. Supp. 618 (Camp v. Cities Service Gas Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Camp v. Cities Service Gas Co., 17 F. Supp. 618, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1664 (W.D. Okla. 1936).

Opinion

VAUGHT, District Judge.

This matter comes on to be heard on the motion of the defendant to quash the service.

[619]*619The plaintiff is a resident of Major county, Okl., and within the Western Federal Judicial District of Oklahoma. The defendant is a foreign corporation licensed to do business in this state and with its principal place of business in the city of Bartlesville in the state of Oklahoma and within the Northern Federal Judicial District of Oklahoma.

At the time the defendant qualified to do business in the state as a nonresident corporation, it designated Fisher Ames of Oklahoma City as its service agent.

The plaintiff brings this action alleging that the cause of action arose in the state of Texas and is based upon injuries received by the said minor, Lile Camp, while residing with his parents, in a house owned by the defendant corporation of which the plaintiff’s father was an employee; that certain trees in the front yard were held in place by guy wires which were fastened in the ground by stakes made of steel rods driven into the ground and extending above the ground approximately eighteen inches; that the plaintiff, while playing in the yard, stumbled over the stakes and guy wires and was severely injured, damages for which this action is brought.

The action was filed in this court, and service upon the defendant was had by serving the service agent in Oklahoma City.

The defendant contends that, the cause of action having arisen beyond the borders of this state and not within the state, the action could only be brought in the federal judicial district in which the defendant had its principal place of business and where its officers resided; that it could not be brought in the Western Judicial District of Oklahoma, for the reason the defendant corporation had no place of business in the Western District, nor officers or agents residing in that district, and that the mere fact that the service agent resided in the Western District of Oklahoma was not sufficient to give the Western District Court jurisdiction.

The defendant further contends that the Oklahoma Statutes providing for the compulsory appointment of a service agent was enacted for the benefit of the state of Oklahoma and not for the benefit of a nonresident of the state of Oklahoma; that it was to require the nonresident corporation to put itself in the same situation within the state as a domestic corporation for the purposes of suits or causes of action arising within the state or arising from transactions within the state.

Article 9, section 43, of the Constitution of Oklahoma, provides the manner in which foreign corporations may be permitted to do business in this state and in that connection provides that the foreign corporation shall file with the Corporation Commission a list of its stockholders, officers, and directors, with the residence and post-office address of each as well as the amount of stock of each. And, furthermore, before being licensed to do business in the state, the foreign corporation shall designate an agent residing in the state, and service of summons or legal notice may be had on such designated agent and such other agents as might be provided for by law. It provides further that suit may be maintained against a foreign corporation in the county where an agent of-such corporation may be found, or in the county of the residence of plaintiff, or in the county where the cause of action may arise.

Section 115 of the Oklahoma Statutes 1931 provides: “In addition to the other counties in which an action may be brought against a non-resident of this state, or a foreign corporation, such action may be brought in any county in which there may be property of, or debts owing to, such defendant, or where such defendant may be found; if such defendant be a foreign insurance company, the action may be brought in any county where such cause of action, or any part thereof, arose, or where the plaintiff resides, or where such company has an agent.” '

Section 130, Oklahoma Statutes 1931, provides: “Every foreign corporation shall, before it shall be authorized or permitted to transact business in this State or continue business therein, if already established, by its certificate under the hand of the president and seal of the company, appoint an agent who shall be a citizen of the State and reside at the state capital, upon whom service of process may be made in any action in which said corporation shall be a party; and action may be brought in any county in which the cause of action arose, as now provided by law. Service upon said agent shall be taken and held as due service upon said corporation; and such certificate shall also state the principal place of business of such corporation in this State, with the address of the resident agent.”

[620]*620Section 112, Oklahoma Statutes 1931, provides: “An action, other than one of those mentioned in the first three sections of this article, against a corporation created by the laws of this state, may be brought in the county in which it is situated, or has its principal office or place of business, or in which any of the principal officers thereof may reside, or be summoned or in the county where the cause of action or some part thereof arose.”

Section 51 of the Judicial Code, as amended (28 U.S.C.A. § 112), provides: “ * * * No civil suit shall be brought in any district court against any person by any original process or proceeding in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant; but where the jurisdiction is founded only on the fact that the action is between citizens -of different States, suit shall be brought only in the district of the residence of either the plaintiff or the defendant.”

Counsel for plaintiff in their brief refer to the case of Power Manufacturing Co. v. Saunders, 274 U.S. 490, 47 S.Ct. 678, 679, 71 L.Ed. 1165. This case, in the judg-. ment of the court, is not applicable. In this case a suit was brought in a county in a state where neither the nonresident corporation had an agent for service or an officer, or agent of any character, and the court said:

“Thus the statutes were-applied as permitting the defendant, a foreign corporation doing business in one county, to be sued in another county, where it did no business and had no office, officer, or agent, on a cause of action which arose in the former. Other counties lay between the two, making the distance from the defendant’s place of business to the place of suit 75 miles by railroad and a few miles less by public roads. This, of course, tended to increase materially the burden otherwise incident to presenting a defense.
“It is conceded that the statutes neither permit a domestic corporation to be sued in a county in which it does no business and has no office, officer, or agent, nor permit a natural person to be sued in a county in which he does not reside and is not found. On the contrary, they confine the admissible venue as to both to counties in which the defendant is present in one of the ways just indicated. But a foreign corporation is differently treated. If it be present in a single county, as by having a place of business there, it is made subject to suit, not merely in that county, but in any of the 74 other counties, although it be not present in them in any sense.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Steinberg v. Aetna Fire Ins. Co.
50 F. Supp. 438 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1943)
Moore v. National Hotel Management Corp.
21 F. Supp. 177 (N.D. Texas, 1937)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
17 F. Supp. 618, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1664, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/camp-v-cities-service-gas-co-okwd-1936.