Duke v. Pioneer Mining & Ditch Co.

280 F. 883, 1922 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 847
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Washington
DecidedMay 17, 1922
DocketNo. 3430
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 280 F. 883 (Duke v. Pioneer Mining & Ditch Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Duke v. Pioneer Mining & Ditch Co., 280 F. 883, 1922 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 847 (W.D. Wash. 1922).

Opinion

CUSHMAN, District Judge.

[1] Defendant moves to quash service of summons. The general statute of the state of Washington concerning service of such process provides:

“The summons shall be served by delivering a copy thereof, as follows: * * *
“9. If the suit he against a foreign corporation or nonresident joint stock company or association doing business within this state, to any agent, cashier or secretary thereof.”
Item. & Bal. Code, § 226.

The affidavits show the defendant to be a corporation of Nevada, ‘principally engaged in mining in Alaska. Defendant has no mines, keeps up no office or place of business in this state, and maintains no agent therein. It carries on no'general business in this state.

In brief, the plaintiff contends that defendant (having owned stock in the Scandinavian-American Banks of Tacoma arid Seattle, carried a general checking account in those banks, and borrowed money of them) was doing business within this state so as to bring it within the statute, and further contends, because of the nature of the particular transaction which forms the basis of this action (the borrowing of the [884]*884money for which the suit is brought and giving a note therefor in this state, payable in this state), that there was such a particular doing bush ness within the state as to support the jurisdiction and that a general agent of the defendant corporation, a resident of California (he being a director, assistant secretary, treasurer, and general manager thereof) while he was passing through the state of Washington from California on his way to Alaska, and while undertaking in the state a negotiation with a public officer in charge of the liquidation of the insolvent bank from which the money had been borrowed (such negotiation being concerning the legality of an assessment upon the capital stock of the bank), was an agent of the defendant upon whom service of process may be made under the statute.

All of these acts are incidental to the business of the corporation, whose principal business is that of mining. Do they constitute “doing business” as these words are ordinarily understood ? A statute of California (Code Civ. Proc. § 411) provided for service of summons upon a foreign corporation “doing business * * * within this state.” (As shown above, these are the words of the Washington statute.) Under the California statute the Circuit Court of Appeals for this Circuit hqs said:

“ * * * Th question as to what kind of business by a foreign corporation within a state will justify a finding that it is engaged in business therein, and validate a service upon its agent, has been very thoroughly and elaborately discussed in the Circuit and Supreme Courts of the United States, and the general consensus of opinion is that the corporation must transact within the state some substantial part of its ordinary business by its officers or agents appointed and selected for that purpose, and that the transaction of an isolated business act is not the carrying on or doing business in a state.” Doe v. Springfield Boiler & Mfg. Co., 104 Fed. 684, at 687, 44 C. C. A. 128, 131.

The acts done by or on behalf of the defendant in the state of Washington, while they may constitute a substantial part of the acts incidental to doing its general or ordinary business, would not constitute “part of its ordinary business,” except as each incidental business transaction connected with the business in which a corporation is engaged is part of its ordinary business.

The defendant, upon three occasions during tire three years preceding the giving of the note in question, purchased in Washington certain supplies for its business in Alaska. It has been contended that such action constituted a doing of business in Washington in the statutory sense. In the foregoing case, in the course of Judge Hawley’s opinion, he cites with approval the following from Judge Thayer’s, decision in St. Louis Wire Mill Co. v. Consolidated Barb Wire Co. (C. C.) 32 Fed. 802, 805:

“ * * * When it is said that a corporation is engaged in business in a foreign state, and for. that reason has voluntarily subjected itself to the operation of the laws of such foreign state regulating service of process on foreign corporations, reference is plainly had to business operations of the corporation carried on within the state through the medium of agents appointed for that purpose that are continuous, or at least of some du/ratvon, and not to business transactions that are merely casual, such as an occasional purchase of goods or material within the foreign state.” 104 Fed. at page 688, 44 C. C. A. 131.

[885]*885The decisions are very numerous upon this question, but none of them called to the court's attention hold that doing such acts as. those of the defendant, described above, constitute “doing business” in the state, particularly as Justice Field defines that expression in St. Clair v. Cox, 106 U. S. 350, 1 Sup. Ct. 354, 27 L. Ed. 222; that is, as equivalent to “engaging in business.” Substantially the same question has been lately considered by Judge Bledsoe, in Knapp v. Bullock Tractor Co. (D. C.) 242 Fed. 543, by Judge Van Fleet, in Moore Dry Goods Co. v. Commercial I. Co. (D. C.) 276 Fed. 590, by Judge Learned Hand, in Hunau v. Northern Region Supply Co. (D. C.) 262 Fed. 181-183, and by Judge Hough, in Day & Co. v. Schiff, Lang & Co. (D. C.) 278 Fed. 533. In Hayworth v. McDonald, 67 Wash. 496, 121 Pac. 984, the bond sued on was an attachment bond; that is, a bond given in a pending action.

If the meaning of the statute had been as contended, the more appropriate phrase of “doing any business within the state,” or “concerning any business transaction within the state,” or an expression of similar import, would doubtless have been used, instead of the. words “doing business,” which are equivalent to “engaging in business.” There may be lines of business in which acts and transactions such as those here shown would encompass or permeate such business to such an extent as to appropriately fall within the statutory language, but such is not the mining business.

[2] It has been argued that, in the present suit, a different rule obtains because the suit is upon a purely Washington transaction. In Hunau v. Northern Region Supply Co., supra, where a similar contention was made, Judge Learned Hand, speaking for the court held:

“I do not mean to suggest, however, that the service will stand upon the second ground suggested by the learned master. I ltnow oí no authoritative decision that a corporation submits itself to local jurisdiction as to any single transaction performed in a foreign state. If so, it would be suable upon all local causes of action, regardless of any other business. Such, indeed, appears to have been the notion in Premo Specialty Co. v. Jersey Creme Co., 200 Fed. 352, 118 C. C. A. 458, 43 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1015, and was in S3 Harv. L. R. 10, attributed to my decision in Smolik v. Phil. & R. Ry. Co. (D. C.) 222 Fed. 148, Though I was, at least consciously, quite innocent of any such purpose. I do not. however, understand this to be the law at all.

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Bluebook (online)
280 F. 883, 1922 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 847, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/duke-v-pioneer-mining-ditch-co-wawd-1922.