Parkhurst v. Stone

36 Fla. 456
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJune 15, 1895
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 36 Fla. 456 (Parkhurst v. Stone) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Parkhurst v. Stone, 36 Fla. 456 (Fla. 1895).

Opinion

Mabry, C. J.:

Defendants in error sued plaintiff in error to recover money alleged to be due on a lease under seal. The declaration alleges the making of the lease by the parties on the 17th day of March, 1888; that it was under seal and executed in the presence of two witnesses, and that by its terms plaintiffs contracted to lease to defendant a certain described store-room, then being constructed, for the term of three years from the date of its completion; that the store-room was subsequently completed, and defendant, in accordance with the contract, occupied it from April, 1888, until the 1st day of May, 1889, and paid for said time the sum of $150 per month, the rent specified; but after [458]*458May, 1889, defendant ceased to pay rent, and still fails and refuses to pay same.

The suit was instituted on the 5th day of February, 1890, and the amount demanded is the rent, as specified in the lease, from the first of May, 1889, up to and including the month of February, 1890, amounting* to $1,500, and interest on the monthly installments of rent as they fell due. It is also alleged that defendant agreed in and by the lease to pay reasonable attorney fees in the event he failed to pay the rent, and plaintiffs had to collect the same by legal process, and the sum of $200 is demanded on this account; and further, that the lease was executed and the cause of action accrued in Orange county, State of Florida. The lease filed with the declaration and referred to as being made a part thereof concludes as follows: “Witness our hands and seals this the 17th day of March, A. D. 1888.

E. M. Parkhurst, (l. s.)
G. N. Stone, (l. s.)
C. Gf. Gove, (l. s.)
By G. N. Stone, Attorney in fact.”
Attest: A. M. Thrasher and '
Andrew Denham, Mattie G.
Colborn and R. de Y. Carroll,
as to Stone and Gove.

The acknowledgment of the lease in Hamilton county, Ohio, on the 24th day of March, 1888, recites the personal appearance of G. hi. Stone and C. G. Gove, by G. 1ST. Stone, his attorney, and that they acknowledged the signing and sealing of the lease to be their voluntary act and deed for the purposes therein expressed. The acknowledgment of the execution of the lease by Parkhurst was made in Orange county, Florida, on the 26th of March, 1888.

[459]*459The record shows a general appearance of defendant by attorneys on the 3d day oftMarcb, A. D. 1890. On the 10th day of March, 1890, defendant filed the following plea: “The defendant, Ed. C. Parkhnrst, limiting the appearance filed hereon on the — day of March, 1890, to the purpose of making this plea, says this court ought not to have or take jurisdiction of this cause, because he says that the defendant is a free-holder residing in Jacksonville, Duval county, in the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida, and is and was such resident and free holder at and before the suit herein was commenced; that the service herein, to answer which he appears, was not had upon this defendant in said county of Orange, nor in the Seventh Judicial Circuit of said State, but was wholly outside of said Orange county, and outside of the Seventh Judicial Circuit of Florida, and in the city of Jacksonville, in Duval county, Florida, in the Fourth Judicail Circuit of the State of Florida; wherefore he prays that said cause be dismissed.” From the record before us it appears that the foregoing plea was demurred to, and a motion was also made to strike it out, and that the demurrer was sustained and the plea stricken out. Subsequently defendant filed two pleas; the first one of which was stricken out on motion, and issue joined on the second, upon which the trial was had and judgment rendered in favor of plaintiffs. The plea stricken out reads as follows: “True it is the said defendant signed the contract in writing on the 17th day of March, 1888, a copy of which is attached to plaintiffs’ said declaration, and that his signature was made thereto in the presence of A. M. Thrasher, the plaintiffs’ attorney herein, and in the presence of Andrew Denham, as attesting witnesses; and true it may be that this defendant, on the 26th day of March, [460]*4601888, made the acknowledgment therein set forth as having been made before said Thrasher as a notary public; but this defendant avers that at the time said contract was so signed and to acknowledged by this •defendant, the said plaintiffs had not signed, or otherwise executed the same. The defendant further avers that he has not seen the original of said written contract since he so signed and acknowledged it, nor has he been advised or informed, otherwise than by the oertified copy attached to said declaration, that said plaintiffs have executed or sought to execute said written contract as a sealed instrument; and so he avers that said contract was never executed as a writing obligatory.” The second plea alleged all the averments of the first plea, and further, that defendant paid the rent to the first day of May, 1889, when the store-room was surrendered to plaintiffs, and the contract to pay rent then became and was extinguished.

The case is before us on writ of error without any ■bill of exceptions embodying the evidence or instructions of the court.

The first error assigned is the ruling of the court sustaining the demurrer and striking out the plea to the jurisdiction of the court. The declaration, it will be remembered, alleged that the cause of action accrued in Orange county where the suit was instituted, but the plea shows that the summons was served on the defendant in Duval county, in the Fourth Judicial ■Circuit. The contention is, that the court of the Seventh Judicial Circuit for Orange county acquired no jurisdiction over the person of the defendant by the service in Duval county. It is further insisted that the act of 1887, Chapter 8721, could not authorize the service of process in this case, as it was the exercise of extra territorial jurisdiction forbidden to the [461]*461Circuit Courts in actions at law by the Constitution. The objection to the act here presented was not insisted on in the case of Sanchez vs. Haynes, 35 Fla. 619, 18 South. Rep. 27, where the act referred to was-to some extent construed. On the record before us we do not think that the defense sought to be interposed by the plaintiff in error can be insisted on by him. The record shows a general appearance of defendant to the action before he interposed his plea, and this had the effect to give the court jurisdiction of his person. The action was not local, but transitory, and it was specifically alleged iu the declaration that-the cause of action accrued in Orange county. A general appearance in such an action waived all questions as to service ’ of process and was a submission of the person of the defendant to the jurisdiction of the-court. This is fully settled by the decision in Curtis & Shaw vs. Howard, 33 Fla. 251, 14 South. Rep. 812, as well as in other decisions of this court. The general appearance would not prevent the defendant from pleading his personal privilege, under the statute, of being-sued in the county of his residence, or the county in which the cause of action accrued, but such privilege-extends no further. McClellan’s Digest, p. 811, sec. 5; Curtis & Shaw vs. Howard, supra.

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Bluebook (online)
36 Fla. 456, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/parkhurst-v-stone-fla-1895.