Ex Parte Milner

35 So. 2d 169, 250 Ala. 511, 1948 Ala. LEXIS 606
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedMarch 25, 1948
Docket6 Div. 660.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 35 So. 2d 169 (Ex Parte Milner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex Parte Milner, 35 So. 2d 169, 250 Ala. 511, 1948 Ala. LEXIS 606 (Ala. 1948).

Opinion

BROWN, Justice.

This is an original application by Nora Milner and Cleo Hayes to- review the order *513 of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, the Hon. Whit Windham, one of the judges of said court presiding, granting the defendant’s motion to quash the service of the summons and complaint made by the sheriff of said county through his deputies, asserting that said order was erroneous and praying for the writ of mandamus to compel said circuit court to vacate same. On the filing of the original application duly verified by the oaths of the petitioners this court ordered the issuance of a rule nisi addressed to the Hon. Whit Windham as such Presiding Judge, commanding him to show cause why said order should not be vacated. Service of the rule nisi was accepted by the respondent and on January 13, 1948, he filed what he designated as “Answer of Whit Windham, Judge of the Circuit Court of the Tenth-Judicial Circuit,” which in its body recites, “Now comes Whit Windham, Judge of the Circuit Court Tenth Judicial Circuit, Birmingham, Alabama, and for answer to the petition filed in this case and to the rule nisi heretofore issued in this case says:” followed by admissions of certain paragraphs of the petition but denying others. Paragraph 4 of said answer states: “This respondent, in answering the paragraph marked ‘fourth’ of the petition, admits that, on the dates named in the several quoted portions in said paragraph ‘fourth’, returns were made of execution of process in said cause by the Sheriff of Jefferson County Alabama through and by Deputy Sheriff Logan and Deputy Sheriff Ingram, as shown and set forth in said paragraph in said petition. Whether any one of these purported executions of process on the defendant, Congress of Industrial Organizations, was and constituted due execution of the same on the said defendant was one of the questions being tried before the undersigned on the motion which is set forth and copied in paragraph ‘seventh’ of the petition; and this respondent does not admit that the process was executed on Congress of Industrial Organizations. The order of this respondent on said motion indicates the conclusion of this respondent that the said process had not been executed on said defendant. * *

In paragraph 6 the respondent deals with the acceptance of service by the attorney for defendants of date April 28, 1947, in respect to which counsel for defendants made statement indicating that such acceptance was not intended to embrace the Congress of Industrial Organizations— C.I.O. No action of the court was invoked with reference to this acceptance of service and none was had, but the court seems to have treated this acceptance of service as inadvertent and without .intention of the attorney to bind the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Taking as tru'e the statement of counsel, we suggest the better practice would have been for counsel to have asked the court for leave to withdraw such acceptance and in the face of the undisputed statement of counsel in open court, this statement would have justified such action.

The answer or return to the rule nisi, as we shall treat it, in addition to what we have stated, reiterates the testimony of the witness Schultz as set out in the petition upon which the court acted in granting the rule nisi commanding the respondent to vacate the order quashing the service -or show why it should not be vacated and attaches to his return the Constitution of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union — C.I.O., the Constitution and By-Laws of The United Wholesale & Warehouse Employees Local Union 261— C.I.O. and doing business in Jefferson County, Alabama, and the Constitution of the Congress of Industrial Organizations —C.I.O.

In the 11th paragraph of the said answer and return it is pointed ou't that there was a clerical omission in the order of the court and a correction thereof.

While the procedural law in mandamus was not strictly observed in respondent’s return, as pointed out in Gainer v. Board of Education of Jefferson County et al., Ala.Sup., 33 So.2d 880; 1 Board of Education of Jefferson County et al. v. State ex rel. Kuchins et al., 222 Ala. 70, 131 So. 239; Longshore, Judge, etc., v. State ex rel. Turner, 137 Ala. 636, 34 So. 684; Garrett v. Cobb, 199 Ala. 80, 74 So. *514 226, we are treating the answer in this case as a retu'rn to the rule nisi.

The question of the liability of the parent organization for acts arising out of the local organization is not a question presented in this case. The sole question, which we now consider, is whether or not leaving a copy of the summons and complaint with Carey Haigler, Agent, and John J. Schultz, Agent, constitutes valid service of process under Article 8, Title 7, Code of 1940, embodying §§ 142 through 145, inclusive, was such service as meets the requirements of due process of law under the constitution of this state and of the 14th amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

Sections 142 and 143 confer on unincorporated organizations or associations the right to sue and be sued in the courts of this state for “any cause of action for or upon which the plaintiff therein may maintain such an action against the members of such organization or association.”

Section 144, Title 7, Code of 1940, provides : “Service of process in such action against su'ch organization or association shall be had by service upon any officer or official member of such organization or association or upon any officer or official member of any branch or local of such organization or association, provided that any such organization or association may file with the secretary of state a designated officer or agent upon whom service shall be had and his residence within the state, and if such designation is so made and filed, service of process shall be had only on the officer or agent so designated if he can be found within the state.”

The defendant — Congress of Industrial Organizations — did not exercise the authority conferred on it of designating an agent upon whom service could be had. The statute is applicable to resident associations as well as nonresident associations, hence there is no discrimination against nonresident associations. Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U.S. 352, 47 S.Ct. 632, 71 L.Ed. 1091.

The constitutional integrity of these statutes was sustained by this cou'rt in Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Green, 210 Ala. 496, 98 So. 569, and it is settled that the activities of such unincorporated organizations are subject to regulation under the police power of the state. Alabama State Federation of Labor et al. v. McAdory, 246 Ala. 1, 18 So.2d 810.

The undisputed evidence shows that Schultz was at the time of service Vice President of Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union — C. I. O., an international union composed of local unions and affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations — C. I. O. That the principal office of the Congress of Industrial Organizations is in Washington, D. C. That Haigler at the time of service on him was State Director for the C. I. 0. Southern Organization Committee and at the time of said service on him was in the exercise of the purpose and practices of Organization Committee, said Haigler acting as State Director thereof.’ Said C. 1. O.

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Bluebook (online)
35 So. 2d 169, 250 Ala. 511, 1948 Ala. LEXIS 606, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-milner-ala-1948.