Fisher v. Canadian Pac. Ry. Co.

1 F. Supp. 235, 1932 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1701
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. New York
DecidedJuly 11, 1932
DocketNo. 770
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 1 F. Supp. 235 (Fisher v. Canadian Pac. Ry. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fisher v. Canadian Pac. Ry. Co., 1 F. Supp. 235, 1932 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1701 (W.D.N.Y. 1932).

Opinion

KNIGHT, District Judge.

Plaintiff is £, resident of Cleveland, state of Ohio. She was appointed executrix of the will of one Fisher pursuant to the laws of that state. Defendant is a railroad corporation organized as such and having all of its lines in Canada. Deceased was killed at Saskatchewan, Canada, and plaintiff brings this action under the Saskatchewan “Fatal Accidents Act.” Defendant, appearing specially, moves to vacate the service of the summons herein on various grounds. The decision depends on the answer given to these questions:

(1) Is the defendant “present” in personam in the district? A foreign corporation “doing business in the state” is present in the district and subject to service of process therein. What constitutes “doing business” within a district has been the subject of judicial consideration many times. No general comprehensive rule of determination hás or can be made. People’s Tobacco Co. v. American Tobacco Co., 246 U. S. 79, 38 S. Ct. 233, 62 L. Ed. 587, Ann. Cas. 1918C, 537. The recent decisions indicate the studied effort on the part of railroad corporations to avoid doing business in districts into which their lines do not extend.

The defendant maintains in Buffalo, N. Y., separate passenger and freight offices. The stationery and literature of the passenger office bear the imprint “W. P. Wass, General Agent, Canadian Pacific Railway, 160 Pearl St., Buffalo, N. Y.” Buffalo is shown as one of its terminals in its regular railway guide. Four passenger trains in and out of Buffalo daily are listed in the time-table. Such trains are run over the tracks of the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railroad, and are operated by the latter company’s engines and employees. Tickets are issued at Buffalo for passengers between Buffalo and points in Canada and a separable part of the ticket covers that part of the journey which is made over the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo tracks. The tickets between Buffalo and Welland on their face bear the words “Issued by Canadian Pacific Railway” and stamped on the back of the latter are the words “Can. Pac. Ry. Buffalo, N. Y.” There are nine employees in the passenger office, and it seems apparent that their duties are such as are generally performed in the passenger office of any railroad. Passenger business was solicited, tickets sold, receipts returned in the usual way to the head office, and cars for transportation of passengers provided each day at a railroad station in Buffalo'. The freight office has six employees. It is handled in practically the same way as the passenger office. Its employees solicited business for the road, gave out information as to routes and rates, took orders for handling and provided cars for the shipment of freight to various points out of Buffalo. Freight customers were billed from Buffalo and collections made through the Buffalo office. Affidavits of the passenger and freight agents in effect are a denial only of the fact that they had no authority to negotiate for or to settle claims.

Defendant relies in the main upon Green v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Ry. Co., 205 U. S. 530, 27 S. Ct. 595, 596, 51 L. Ed. 916, and Philadelphia & Reading R. Co. v. McKibbin, 243 U. S. 264, 37 S. Ct. 280, 281, 61 L. Ed. 710, and cases therein cited, in support of its contention that defendant is not doing business within the state. Green v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Ry. Co., supra, is distinguishable from the case at bar in various phases, irrespective of whether, as said in Hutchinson et al. v. Chase & Gilbert, Inc. (C. C. A.) 45 F.(2d) 139, 141, this decision “perhaps becomes somewhat doubtful in the light of International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 579, 34 S. Ct. 944, 58 L. Ed. 1479.” The passenger agent, in the Green Case, sold no tickets and received no payment for transportation of freight. Evidently its freight was not billed by defendant from the place of origin, as the court says: “The business shown in this case was, in substance, nothing more than that of solicitation.” In Philadelphia & Reading Railway Co. v. McKibbin, supra, the court, referring to defendant’s place of business, said: “It has no dock, or freight or passenger ticket office or any other office or any agent or property therein. Like other railroads distant from New York, it sends into that state, over connecting carriers, loaded freight cars, shipped by other persons, which cars are, in course of time, returned. * * * The whole ticket, in each ease, is issued by the Central Railroad of New Jersey; and each coupon so recites. * * * Neither the Philadelphia & Reading nor the Baltimore & Ohio has any office or any employee at the terminal [Central R. R. of N. J.]. * * * Obviously the sale by a local carrier of through tickets does not involve a doing of business within the state by each of the connecting carriers.”

[237]*237The case of Graustein v. Rutland R. Co. (D. C.) 256 F. 409, cited by defendant, is not in point. The defendant railroad company maintained an office and retained employees within the district in question. These, employees, however, had authority only to solicit business. One was a representative of the defendant railroad; the other was a representative of that and other roads. Neither of these representatives kept tickets for sale, and tickets were issued by the Boston & Maine Railroad over the Rut-land Railroad. I have examined numerous other eases cited by defendant. I think none of these presents a case comparable in the combination of acts going to show the transaction of business.

A reason stressed by the courts as bearing upon the question of what constitutes legal presence of a party within a district is the fact of the inconvenience and expense to which a party would be put where the action is brought in some other place than in which it may be said to be doing business. The defendant is a foreign alien corporation, and, unless action can be brought here, plaintiff would be compelled to sue in Canada. As was said in Hutchinson v. Chase & Gilbert, Inc., supra, as indicating the reason for a rule with reference to a corporation doing business in a district: “There must be some continuous dealings in the state of the forum; enough to demand a trial away from its home. This last appears to us to be really the controlling consideration, expressed shortly by the. word ‘presence,’ but involving an estimate of the inconveniences which would result from requiring it to defend, where it has been sued.” Of course, these reasons would not be applicable here. International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, supra; People’s Tobacco Co. v. American Tobacco Co., supra; Davega, Inc., v. Lincoln Furniture Mfg. Co., Inc. (C. C. A.) 29 F.(2d) 164; St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. Alexander, 227 U. S. 218, 33 S. Ct. 245, 57 L. Ed. 486, Ann. Cas. 1915B, 77, are authority for the position that the acts of the defendant in this district, such as shown here, constitute doing business in the state, and that, therefore, the defendant is “present” within the state.

(2) Assuming that the defendant is “present” in this district, has this court jurisdiction where the plaintiff resides in another district and where the cause of action arose in another district? In Barrow Steamship Co. v.

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Bluebook (online)
1 F. Supp. 235, 1932 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1701, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fisher-v-canadian-pac-ry-co-nywd-1932.