Draper v. Louisville Nashville Railroad Co.

156 S.W.2d 626, 348 Mo. 886, 1941 Mo. LEXIS 554
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedJune 12, 1941
StatusPublished
Cited by75 cases

This text of 156 S.W.2d 626 (Draper v. Louisville Nashville Railroad Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Draper v. Louisville Nashville Railroad Co., 156 S.W.2d 626, 348 Mo. 886, 1941 Mo. LEXIS 554 (Mo. 1941).

Opinions

This is an action for damages for personal injuries. Plaintiff obtained a verdict for $55,000. Defendant has appealed from the judgment entered.

Plaintiff was run over and his legs were cut off by defendant's switch engine at Louisville, Kentucky, in August, 1937. A suit was filed there and also in St. Louis in 1938. Defendant's answer contained a plea in abatement on the ground that this same cause of action was pending in the Circuit Court of Louisville, and a plea to the jurisdiction upon the ground that the prosecution of the cause in St. Louis would place an undue burden upon interstate commerce, in violation of Article 1, Sec. 8 of the Constitution of the United States. The trial court, after separate hearing, found that the signature on the contract authorizing the Kentucky suit was not plaintiff's and that he was not bound thereby. The plea in abatement (and also to the jurisdiction) was overruled by the court's order to proceed to trial on the merits. Defendant assigns this action as error. After the first hearing of this appeal, we handed down an opinion (at *Page 889 the May Term, 1940) holding that, while the plea in abatement was properly overruled, the plea to the jurisdiction should have been sustained. However, on motion of plaintiff, a rehearing was granted.

We adhere to our ruling that the plea in abatement was properly overruled both because there was substantial evidence to support the finding that plaintiff never signed nor authorized the signing of the contract authorizing the Kentucky suit; and because "the general rule, that the pendency of a prior action, between the same parties, for the same cause of action, whether at law or in equity, may be pleaded in abatement of a subsequent action therefor, . . . applies only where two courts have concurrent jurisdiction of the same cause of action and where the prior action is pending in one of such courts, and the subsequent action in another; and therefore such a plea, ordinarily, will not be sustained where the prior action is pending in a court of foreign or different jurisdiction, or, as otherwise expressed,[628] where the two actions are pending in courts of different sovereignties, such as in courts of different states, . . . or countries, or in a federal and also in a state court." [1 C.J.S., p. 97, sec. 63, also sec. 65. See also 1 C.J., p. 84, sec. 113; 1 Am. Jur., p. 42, sec. 39; Kansas City Gas Co. v. Kansas City et al., 198 F. 500; Silent Automatic Sales Corp. v. Stayton,45 F.2d 476; Chicago, R.I. P.R. Co. v. Schendel,279 U.S. 611, 46 Sup. Ct. 420, 70 L.Ed. 757, 53 A.L.R. 1265.]

[2] The relevant facts on the plea to the jurisdiction are that plaintiff at the time of his injury in Kentucky was a resident of Chattanooga, Tennessee; and that, at the time of the trial, he resided at Paducah, Kentucky. Defendant is a Kentucky corporation, not licensed to do business in Missouri, and has no railroad line in Missouri. Defendant's Missouri business, both passenger and freight, is entirely interstate. However, defendant has a ticket office and a freight depot in St. Louis, and its trains, both passenger and freight, run into St. Louis, but are handled from East St. Louis, Illinois, by engines of the Terminal Railroad Association over its tracks. Defendant's freight trains, departing from St. Louis, are likewise handled by engines of the Terminal to East St. Louis. Its passenger trains enter and depart from the Union Station. Defendant brought 19 witnesses, mostly its employees, from Louisville to St. Louis. Defendant did not actually pay out money for transportation of its witnesses, but the daily cost of their maintenance was about $157. The trial commenced on Monday, November 21, and closed Saturday, November 26.

Section 874, R.S. 1939, Section 723, Mo. Stat. Ann., p. 936, provides: "Suits against corporations shall be commenced either in the county where the cause of action accrued, or in case the corporation defendant is a railroad company owning, controlling or operating a railroad running into or through two or more counties in this state, then in either of such counties, or inany county where such corporations *Page 890 shall have or usually keep an office or agent for thetransaction of their usual and customary business." (Italics ours.) The italicized part of Section 723, under the facts, authorized, we think, the commencement of this cause in St. Louis, unless jurisdiction is denied under the theory that to prosecute the cause in St. Louis would place an undue burden on interstate commerce.

In Busch v. L. N.R. Co., 322 Mo. 469, 17 S.W.2d 337, certiorari denied 280 U.S. 569, 50 Sup. Ct. 27, 74 L.Ed. 622, it was held that the plaintiff, who was not a resident of Missouri, could sue this same defendant in this State for damages for personal injuries sustained elsewhere. This court, in that case (17 S.W.2d l.c. 339) said:

"Defendant admits that it was engaged in interstate commerce within the state, and `the presence of a corporation within a state necessary to the service of process is shown when it appears that the corporation is there carrying on business in such sense as to manifest its presence within the state, although the business transacted may be entirely interstate in its character.' [International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky,234 U.S. 589, 34 Sup. Ct. 947, 58 L.Ed. 1484. (234 U.S. 579, 34 Sup. Ct. 944, 58 L.Ed. 1479.) . . . This case is clearly distinguishable from Davis v. Farmers' Co-operative Co., 262 U.S. 312, 43 Sup. Ct. 556, 67 L.Ed. 996.] A foreign corporation must submit, if there is jurisdiction, to the requirements of orderly, effective administration of justice, although thereby interstate commerce is incidentally burdened. [Hoffman v. Missouri ex rel. Foraker,274 U.S. 21, 47 Sup. Ct. 485, 71 L.Ed. 905.]"

In the Davis case, and others cited by defendant, the company had only a soliciting agent in the state in which it was sued. That has never been held sufficient to confer jurisdiction, by the United States Supreme Court; but clearly that is not the situation here because defendant continuously carried on business in Missouri by running its trains into and out of this State every day. This distinction was made by this court in Meek v. New York, C. St. L.R. Co., 337 Mo. 1188, 88 S.W.2d 333, certiorari denied 297 U.S. 722, 56 Sup. Ct. 668, 80 L.Ed. 1006. [See also International Milling Co. v. Columbia Transportation Co., 292 U.S. 511, 54 Sup. Ct. 797, 78 L.Ed. 1396.] Upon the authority of these cases, we hold that the plea to the jurisdiction was properly overruled.

[3] Defendant's contention on the merits is that its peremptory instruction, in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence, should have been given. The case was submitted solely on the Kentucky last chance theory that defendant's "fireman . . . saw

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Bluebook (online)
156 S.W.2d 626, 348 Mo. 886, 1941 Mo. LEXIS 554, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/draper-v-louisville-nashville-railroad-co-mo-1941.