Cox v. Railway Conductors' Co-operative Protective Ass'n

160 N.W. 608, 194 Mich. 213, 1916 Mich. LEXIS 500
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 22, 1916
DocketDocket No. 80
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 160 N.W. 608 (Cox v. Railway Conductors' Co-operative Protective Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cox v. Railway Conductors' Co-operative Protective Ass'n, 160 N.W. 608, 194 Mich. 213, 1916 Mich. LEXIS 500 (Mich. 1916).

Opinion

Steere, J.

This action was commenced December 11, 1914, in the circuit court for Wayne county to recover a claim for $680.60, based upon a judgment for that amount rendered in favor of plaintiff and against defendant in the circuit court for Grundy county, Mo., on October 7, 1914. The judgment here appealed from was rendered for defendant upon a directed verdict, on the ground that the Missouri court was without jurisdiction to render the judgment relied upon because no valid service of process from that court was ever made upon defendant; the person upon whom service was attempted not being its authorized agent.

Plaintiff was a resident of Kansas City, State of Missouri, and a conductor on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad. Defendant was, and is, a Michigan corporation organized in 1909, having its office and principal place of business in Detroit, Mich., engaged in insuring, so far as material here, to a specified amount according to age of policy, railway conductors and engineers in various States against loss by reason of discharge from their employment. Defendant had not qualified under the laws of Missouri relative to foreign corporations desiring to operate in that State, had obtained no license from the State commissioner of insurance, filed with him no appointment of any person upon whom process might be served, and was not authorized to .do business in that State. It did, however, issue policies to residents of that State, and in January, 1911, issued to plaintiff the policy over which this litigation arose. Carl A. Guile, a railroad conductor residing at Trenton, Grundy county, Mo., where a “lodge” of the association was located, accepted his application, received from him the fees [215]*215therefor and dues for the first month, indorsed his approval upon the application, sent it to defendant’s secretary in Detroit, and later delivered the policy to plaintiff at Trenton, Mo. Thereafter plaintiff paid the regular monthly dues to defendant until discharged by his employer, in October, 1913, when he sought an adjustment under the terms of his policy according to the by-laws of the association and subsequently presented his claim for payment to defendant in Detroit through his attorney, which was refused, and he thereafter brought an action in Grundy county to recover the same, service of process being made upon Guile as agent of defendant, which resulted in the judgment upon which this action is based. When process was., served upon Guile, he notified defendant of the fact and received a letter from W. J. Eoss, its. secretary and treasurer. Defendant did not appear in that case, and judgment was taken against it by default, upon testimony introduced by plaintiff. A duly authenticated transcript of said judgment was introduced in evidence in the instant case, and proper proof made of the laws of that State relating to the subject under inquiry. Defendant had given special notice, under its plea claiming the alleged judgment was void for want of jurisdiction, that no valid service of process in that case had ever been made upon it, and that it never had an agent or any other person authorized to receive or accept service for it in the State of Missouri. Testimony was. introduced upon that subject, and the court sustained defendant’s contention, directing a verdict in its favor as before stated.

Plaintiff’s assignments of error relate to rulings of the court in the admission and rejection of testimony and refusal of the court to submit certain claimed issues of fact, and especially the question of Guile’s agency, to the jury.

Defendant’s counsel cite and rely upon Farrow v. [216]*216Protective Ass’n, 178 Mich. 639 (146 N. W. 147), and assert “that case is entirely on all fours with the present case.” It is true that case is in many aspects very similar to the present one. It is an action brought against this, defendant, in this State, based on a foreign judgment rendered in the State of Washington in favor of a resident policy holder there. The question at issue was the jurisdiction of the foreign court to render the judgment sued upon. The record evidence and defendant’s testimony were closely analogous to that produced here, with the marked exceptions that there no proof was made of the law of the State in which the judgment sued upon was rendered; .the defendant in the Michigan court was not the defendant in the Washington court, did not have the same name, was not charged as the successor nor as having assumed the liability of the association which issued the policy, was not shown to have been engaged in business in that State; and its testimony, that the party upon whom process was served was not its agent nor authorized to accept service for it, and that it never had an agent in the State of Washington, was undisputed. Under such absence of proof essential to show jurisdiction, and undisputed testimony to the negative, the finding of the trial court that the Washington court did not acquire jurisdiction was sustained. Here the laws of Missouri are proven, this defendant is the defendant against whom the judgment was taken there, and not only the findings of the court set out in the transcript of judgment but the oral affirmative testimony introduced by plaintiff contradict defendant’s testimony that it was not doing business in Missouri and that Guile, upon whom process was served, was not defendant’s agent in that State.

The Farrow Case, and also Marshall v. Owen & Co., 171 Mich. 232 (137 N. W. 204), in which it was held error to refuse testimony offered to show that the per[217]*217son served was not defendant’s agent, are however, helpful cases here, as they discuss with citation of authorities the established rules of law relative to actions upon foreign judgments and the permissible proof to sustain or impeach them. Under the well-settled doctrine reaffirmed in those cases, it cannot be doubted that the foreign judgment involved in the instant case was open to attack by the defense, for want of jurisdiction in the Missouri court. The question here is whether, as the trial court held, it was successfully and conclusively impeached as a matter of law, beyond any issue of fact for a jury to decide. The issues raised in that inquiry were whether defendant was doing business in Missouri and Guile was its agent upon whom service of process could be made to give the court of that State jurisdiction.

It is conceded that defendant was a foreign corporation, never domesticated or authorized to do business in that State. That it wrote insurance for and issued policies to residents of that State is undisputed. The laws of Missouri relative to foreign insurance companies transacting business in that State are in their essential features generally analogous to those of this State and need not be dwelt upon.

As bearing upon the question of agency, section 7052, 2 Rev. Stat. Mo. 1909, is in part as follows:

“ ‘Agent,’ Defined

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
160 N.W. 608, 194 Mich. 213, 1916 Mich. LEXIS 500, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cox-v-railway-conductors-co-operative-protective-assn-mich-1916.