Kelly v. United States Steel Corp.

198 F. Supp. 640, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3153
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 11, 1960
DocketCiv. A. Nos. 17251, 17795
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 198 F. Supp. 640 (Kelly v. United States Steel Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kelly v. United States Steel Corp., 198 F. Supp. 640, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3153 (W.D. Pa. 1960).

Opinion

WILLSON, District Judge.

In these two civil actions defendant, The Thew Shovel Company, a corporation, has filed motions to dismiss. In each case, plaintiffs are citizens of Pennsylvania. The co-defendant, United States Steel Corporation has heretofore been dismissed as a defendant because of lack of diversity, this court having held that it, though a New Jersey Corporation, has its principal place of business within Pennsylvania. Admittedly, The Thew Shovel Company is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of Ohio with its principal place of business in the City of Lorain, Ohio. Plaintiff asserts that there is venue in this district because Thew does business within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania within the meaning of section 1011, subsection C of the Business Corporation Law of Pennsylvania as re-enacted November 10, 1959, 15 P.S. 2852-1011.

Plaintiffs have made several attempts to serve process upon defendant Thew in these cases. The initial service was made upon Thew on August 23,1958 by serving the Atlas Equipment Corporation, alleged to be the agent of Thew in Western Pennsylvania. This service was held improper in an opinion by Judge McIlvaine filed January 28, 1959, D.C., 170 F.Supp. 649. Thereafter, counsel for plaintiff secured an Order of Court for leave to serve the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a statutory agent of the defendant and this service was accomplished February 5, 1959. Defendant’s motion is first pointed to the issue that such service on the defendant is improper because it claims that Thew does not do business in Pennsylvania. It is noticed in this connection that the venue statute, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1391, in diversity cases, provides that a corporation may be sued in any judicial district in which it is doing business. The point is that if Thew is doing business in this district, then venue is properly laid by plaintiff in this district.

By stipulation, and since the argument on the motions, defendant has again been served under the provisions of section 1011, subd. C of the Business Corporation Law of Pennsylvania by service of process upon .the Secretary of the Commonwealth. It is to be noticed that that section was added to the business corporation law in 1951 but was omitted in the 1957 revisions of that statute. It was then re-enacted on November 10, 1959. The present motion, by stipulation of counsel, applies to the section as re-enacted, as plaintiff has, by Court Order, been permitted to serve the Secretary of the Commonwealth. It is to be noticed that this court’s jurisdiction over a foreign corporation may be secured by service of the federal process as permitted under Federal Rule 4(d) (7), 28 U.S.C.A., providing jurisdiction over the same corporation could be secured by a state court under a state statute. The issue boils down then to whether defendant is doing business in Pennsylvania within the purview of the corporate law of the state. If so, service is proper. If not, the motion should be granted.

Defendant, an Ohio Corporation, is not registered to do business in Pennsylvania. It has no office as such here. Defendant is a manufacturer of power shovels, draglines and other heavy equipment. It does business nationwide but by the means of exclusive distributorships and under written agreements. In the contract between Thew and the Atlas Equipment Corporation, a provision specifically states that the distributor is not constituted an agent of Thew and nothing it does under the contract shall be represented or construed as constituting the [642]*642distributor the agent of the manufacturer. In its method of doing business, the distributor must and does buy its products outright from Thew. It resells to its customers. In this district, the Atlas contract is similar to contracts used by Thew all over the United States. Orders for purchase of Thew products by Atlas or any other distributor are accepted in Ohio. During the course of the pendency of these actions, the agreement between Thew and Atlas Equipment Corporation was terminated and another distributor was substituted for Thew products in this district. It is conceded in these cases, that there are no offices in Pennsylvania which show the name of Thew on the building directory or doors, nor does it own or lease any warehouses, nor storage or delivery sites in this state. Neither does it maintain any bank accounts in Pennsylvania nor hold directors meetings in this state. It does not conduct any manufacturing operations in Pennsylvania through any subsidiary nor does it maintain any service company in Pennsylvania.

The foregoing might be termed negative factors which tend to show that Thew does not do business in Pennsylvania. That contention is strongly urged by defendant. Its counsel points to the most recent decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Swavely v. Van-degrift, 397 Pa. 281, 154 A.2d 779, decided October 21, 1959. In some respects the facts reviewed in the cited case are similar to the factual situation in the instant case, but it' seems to this court upon review of the facts before me that the factual situation is more like that contained in the decision of Florio v. Powder Power Tool Corp., 248 F.2d 367, 372, a decision of the Court of Appeals of this circuit. In speaking of the written contract before him, Judge Biggs said, “These territorial contracts were rigidly restrictive in nature.” The same terminology can be applied to the contract between Thew and Atlas. The agreement carefully defined the territory in which Atlas could sell defendant’s products. Part of this territory was Western Pennsylvania. One paragraph of the contract was styled, “Section 5. Distributor Organization and Plant.” Under that heading the language in the contract was:

“The distributor shall, to the satisfaction of the manufacturer, maintain within his territory a stock of the products covered hereby, and an organization and facilities for the solicitation of business, and the storage, installation and servicing of such products.”

The contract set forth Thew’s warranty running to the customers of Atlas, that is, purchasers of Thew products, but Atlas was the only organization in Pennsylvania through which Thew could fulfill its warranty. The distributor contract provided that either party could terminate it at any time upon written notice to the other. On termination, the contract provided that Thew could require the return of the products purchased by Atlas at the prices originally paid by Atlas but it also provided that Thew could declare some items nonreturnable.

It is noticed that the statute says the “entry of any corporation * * * for the doing of a series of similar acts for the purpose of thereby realizing pecuniary benefit * * * ”, is doing business. In sections nineteen and twenty of the contract, Thew required Atlas to report to it the names and addresses of customers for each machine sold or leased, and also Atlas was to report “ * * * such installation and follow up service data as may reasonably be required”. Thew also required Atlas to report at reasonably specified times, Atlas’ inventory on hand and statements showing Atlas’ financial condition.

From the depositions of Mr. Reinhold, the President of Atlas and Mr. Clark, Secretary-Treasurer of Thew, the practice and method of the sale and distribution of the Thew products in Pennsylvania was substantially as follows.

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Bluebook (online)
198 F. Supp. 640, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3153, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kelly-v-united-states-steel-corp-pawd-1960.