Southwestern Gas & Electric Co. v. Patterson Orchard Co.

20 S.W.2d 636, 180 Ark. 148, 1929 Ark. LEXIS 243
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedOctober 14, 1929
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 20 S.W.2d 636 (Southwestern Gas & Electric Co. v. Patterson Orchard Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Southwestern Gas & Electric Co. v. Patterson Orchard Co., 20 S.W.2d 636, 180 Ark. 148, 1929 Ark. LEXIS 243 (Ark. 1929).

Opinion

McHaney, J.

The principal facts involved in this controversy, as well as the history of this litigation, are well stated in the recent case of Patterson Orchard Co. v. Southwest Arkansas Utilities Corporation, 179 Ark. 1029, 18 S. W. (2d) 1028, and we will not repeat them here, except as may he necessary to a proper understanding of the issues here decided.

Appellant, Southwestern Gas & Electric Company, is a foreign corporation, hut for some years has been doing business in this State in compliance with all laws regulating the admission of foreign corporations into this State. It is engaged in the business of supplying electricity to consumers, owning, constructing and operating high tension lines and distributing systems. In the construction of one of its high tension lines, it sought a thirty-foot right-of-way over and across the orchard lands of appellee, which it was unable to obtain by negotiation. It thereupon, on March 17, 1928, filed with the clerk of the circuit court of Sevier County its petition to condemn said right-of-way, and thereafter, on the same day, presented same to the circuit judge, and obtained an order directing a deposit with the clerk of a, certain sum of money, and giving authority to enter upon said land and construct its lines. No notice was given appellee of this application. On March 20, on application of appellee, the judge made another order holding in abeyance his first order, which was served on appellants at a time when the line was practically completed across the orchard. This second order was made by the judge for the reason that the Southwestern Company is a foreign corporation, and not authorized under the Constitution to condemn property. The Southwest Arkansas Utilities Corporation was then organized, and brought its action in the circuit court to condemn the same right-of-way across the orchard. On motion of appellee the cause was transferred to the chancery court, which proceeded to decree in plaintiff’s favor, conditioned as follows: “Conditioned, however, upon the payment to the defendant by the plaintiff * * * one thousand dollars, covering all damages sustained by the defendant on account of the taking of said right-of-way by the plaintiff,” etc.

The defendant in that action is the appellee here. That decree was affirmed by this court on July 8, 1929, as above stated, both on the appeal and cross-appeal, appellee contending in that case that the damages assessed were excessive.

In the original action by appellant, the Southwestern Company, appellee filed an answer and cross-complaint, alleging that said appellant had no authority to condemn its property, and that it had been damaged on account of the wrongful entry upon its lands in the sum of $500 actual damages and $5,000 punitive damages. On a trial to a jury there was a verdict and a judgment in favor of appellee for $700.

The Southwestern Company will be hereafter referred to as appellant, although there are several other appellants against whom the judgment was obtained.

The first question presented is whether a foreign corporation, having complied with our foreign corporation laws, may condemn private property. Section 11 of article 12 of the Constitution of this State reads as follows:

“Foreign corporations maybe authorized to do business in this State under such limitations and restrictions as may be prescribed by law. Provided, that no such corporation shall do any business in this State except while it maintains therein one or more known places of business, and an authorized agent or agents in the same upon whom process may be served; and, as to the contracts made or business done in this State, they shall be subject to the same regulations, limitations and liabilities as like corporations of this State, and shall exercise no other or greater powers, privileges or franchises than may be exercised by like corporations of this State, nor shall they have power to condemn or appropriate private property. ’ ’

The Legislature of this State has never undertaken to extend the power of eminent domain to foreign corporations. By an act approved March 22, 1887, act No. 80, p. 110, entitled, “An act to prohibit foreign corporations from operating railroads in this State,” it was made unlawful for any citizen or corporation of another State to “build, lease, own, maintain or operate a railroad within this State,” and all such persons or corporations were required to organize domestic corporations for this purpose. By act 34, Acts of 1889, p. 42, certain sections of the act of 1887 were repealed, and other sections added which provided, among other things, that when a foreign railroad company complied with the law by filing with the Secretary of 'State a certified copy of its articles of incorporation or ¡charter, it thereby “became a corporation of this State, anything in its articles of incorporation or charter to the contrary notwithstanding.”

In Russell v. St. L. S. W. Ry. Co., 71 Ark. 451, 75 S. W. 725, this court held that: “Upon a compliance with the act of 1889 a railroad corporation of another State becomes a corporation of this State, with all its rights and powers, and subject to all its duties and obligations,” including the power or right of eminent domain. The opinion in that case is based upon the language of the act of 1889, which provides that, upon doing the things heretofore stated, a foreign corporation becomes a domestic corporation. This statute stood unamended and unchanged as § 8424, C. & M. Digest, until 1925, when, by act 254, Acts 1925, p. 745, it was amended to' include pipe lines, but not power lines.

Of course, by complying with said statute, the foreign corporation does not surrender its identity as a foreign corporation, but continues for jurisdictional purposes to be a corporation of the State of its creation, and may remove proper cases to the Federal courts. It is, however, domesticated in thisi State, and, to all intents and purposes, in connection with its business in this State, is a corporation of this State. It becomes the adopted child of this (State. -But not so as to all other foreign corporations. Nowhere do we find in our foreign corporation laws any language that malees them corporations of this ¡State. Upon compliance with our laws they are given all the powers of domestic corporations, except such as are prohibited by the Constitution. The power of eminent domain is expressly extended to traction, light and power companies organized in this State by § 4042 et seq., C. & M. Digest, but not to foreign companies, the Legislature evidently considering that it had no power to do so without first requiring them to become domesticated.

The Russell case, supra, was cited in L. & N. W. Rd. Co. v. State, 75 Ark. 435, 88 S. W. 559, 5 Ann. Cas. 637, and on page 441 this language is used: “This court held in Russell v. St. L. S. W. Rd. Co., 71 Ark. 451, 75 S. W. 725, ¿hat a foreign railroad corporation complying with the iws of this State becomes a domestic corporation, an . capable of exercising eminent domain, which can only be exercised by domestic corporations.” We therefore conclude that a foreign corporation, such as appellant, cannot exercise the power of eminent domain because prohibited by the 'Constitution of this State.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Young v. Energy Transportation Systems Inc.
644 S.W.2d 266 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1983)
Starr Farms, Inc. v. Southwestern Electric Power Co.
607 S.W.2d 391 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1980)
El Paso Electric Co. v. Real Estate Mart, Inc.
592 P.2d 181 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1979)
Palmer, Liquidator of Chicago Lloyds v. McDonald
130 S.W.2d 728 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1939)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
20 S.W.2d 636, 180 Ark. 148, 1929 Ark. LEXIS 243, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/southwestern-gas-electric-co-v-patterson-orchard-co-ark-1929.