W. H. Hodges & Co. v. Pennsylvania R.

132 So. 115, 171 La. 350
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedDecember 1, 1930
DocketNo. 30817
StatusPublished

This text of 132 So. 115 (W. H. Hodges & Co. v. Pennsylvania R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
W. H. Hodges & Co. v. Pennsylvania R., 132 So. 115, 171 La. 350 (La. 1930).

Opinion

ROGERS, J.

The plaintiff, W. H. Hodges & Co., Inc., is a Louisiana corporation domiciled in the parish of St. Bernard. The defendant, Pennsylvania Railroad Company, is a nonresident corporation, not ¡qualified to do, nor doing, any business within the state, engaged in interstate commerce. The suit is one for the recovery of damages for the loss of two cows which plaintiff alleges died from injuries received through rough treatment and negligent handling while in transit outside the state. The cows formed part of a carload of cattle which were shipped from Greenville, Ill., a point on the line of the defendant railroad company, to New Orleans, La. Plaintiff, as the holder of the bill of lading, instituted its action against the defendant, as the initial carrier, under the Carmack Amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act (49 USCA § 29(11, 12). The suit was filed in the civil district court for the parish of Orleans, and jurisdiction of the local courts was asserted by attachment and garnishment proceedings, under which certain freight cars owned by the defendant were seized in the possession of the Illinois Central Railroad Company.

The defendant excepted to the jurisdiction of the eougt on the twofold ground that defendant, being a nonresident corporation, not qualified to do, and not doing, any business within the state, was not amenable to local process on a cause of action arising out[701]*701side tlie state, and that the cause of action alleged unduly interfered with interstate commerce in violation of the commerce clause of the federal Constitution.

The court below maintained the exception on the first of these grounds, and dismissed plaintiff’s suit. The Court of Appeal, 14 La. App. 285, 128 So. 52, without passing upon that ground, maintained the second ground of defendant’s exception, and affirmed the judgment. The case is now before us on a writ of certiorari or review.

Obviously, the first question to be determined is whether the laws of the state authorize the cause of action declared on by the plaintiff. If they do not, that is the end of the case. On the other hand, if they do authorize such an action, then it will become necessary to consider and dispose of the question of whether the action constitutes an interference with interstate commerce in violation of the federal Constitution.

The legal effect of the provision of the Carmack Amendment (49 USCA § 20(11, 12) imposing liability upon the initial carrier for any loss, damage, or injury to property in transit is not to confer upon the lawful holder of a bill of lading any new kind of contractual right, but to extend to him rather a new and additional-kind of remedy for the enforcement of his pre-existing contractual rights, by granting him a right of action against the initial carrier where the primary liability is upon a connecting carrier,

In this case, plaintiff, availing itself of its choice of remedies, elected to sue in tort rather than in contract. Plaintiff grounds its action on Act 215 of 1920, authorizing the issuance of writs of attachment in suits against nonresident corporations for damages arising from offenses, quasi offenses, or torts. The writ is the principal demand, and the foundation of the suit is in rem and operates only on the property seized. Burgin Bros. & McCane v. Barker Baking Co., 152 La. 1075, 95 So. 227.

The question for decision, therefore, is: In a transitory action arising in another state are the courts of this state authorized, under its laws, to entertain jurisdiction of a suit instituted by attachment and garnishment by one of its citizens against a nonresident corporation having no agent and doing no business within the state?

Act 215 of 1920, invoked by plaintiff, must be construed in connection with the provisions of Act 184 of 1924, limiting the jurisdiction of the state courts over nonresident corporations having an agent or doing business within the state to cases of liability growing out of or connected with the business done by the corporation in the state. The latter statute was enacted manifestly for the purpose of making the statutory provisions conform expressly with the interpretations this court had given the previous statutes, which the.Supreme Court of the United States recognized as a fair and reasonable interpretation. See United Oil & Natural Gas Products Corporation v. United Carbon Co., ante, p. 374, 131 So. 52, recently decided.

In Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co. v. Chatters (Southern Railway Co. v. Chatters), 279 U. S. 320, 49 S. Ct. 329, 73 L. Ed. 711, the Supreme Court of the United States had before it a case arising under Act 184 of 1924, in which it referred to the decisions of this court construing previous statutes on the same subject-matter (State ex rel. Watkins v. North American Land & Timber Co., 106 La. 621, 31 So. 172, 87 Am. St. Rep. 309; Delatour and Marmouget v. Southern Railway Co., 4 La. App. 658; Buscher v. Southern Railway Co., 4 La. App. 653; Missouri [703]*703Pacific Railroad Co. v. Clarendon Boat Oar Co., 257 U. S. 533, 42 S. Ct. 210, 66 L. Ed. 354), as bolding, in effect, that the designation of the statutory agent did not authorize a suit against a nonresident corporation on a cause of action arising wholly outside and wholly unconnected with any act or business of the corporation within the state.

The case of Delatour and Marmouget v. Southern Railway Co., referred to in the court’s opinion, was decided by the Court of Appeal for the Parish of Orleans, and writs of certiorari and review therein applied for were denied by this court. The case involved an action ex delicto for the recovery of damages for injuries to certain race horses owned by the plaintiff. The accident in which the horses were injured occurred near Greenville, S. C., while the shipment was in transit from Bowie, Md., to New Orleans, La. An exception to the jurisdiction of the state court was held to be well-founded. The basis of the decision was that in a transitory action arising in another state, the courts of this state, irrespective of the citizenship of the plaintiff, are without jurisdiction to entertain a suit brought against a nonresident corporation doing no local business within the state, despite the fact that the corporation, under the laws of the, state, has voluntarily designated an agent to represent it within the, state for purposes of citation.

In the case of Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. v. Clarendon Boat Oar Co., 257 U. S. 533, 42 S. Ct. 210, 211, 66 L. Ed. 354, the plaintiff sued the defendant, a New York corporation, for damages for breach of contract of affreightment entered into and to be performed in Arkansas. The suit was brought in one of the district courts of the state, because the defendant had qualified to do business within the state by designating an agent for the service of process. A plea to the jurisdiction was sustained on the ground that the cause of action arose outside the state. The case was taken to the Supreme Court of the United Sates on a writ of error, and that court, in dismissing the writ, stated, viz.:

“Provisions for making foreign corporations subject to service in the state is a matter of legislative discretion, and a failure to provide for such service is not a denial of due process.

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Related

Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance v. Spratley
172 U.S. 602 (Supreme Court, 1899)
Mutual Reserve Fund Life Assn. v. Phelps
190 U.S. 147 (Supreme Court, 1903)
Simon v. Southern Railway Co.
236 U.S. 115 (Supreme Court, 1915)
Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Clarendon Boat Oar Co.
257 U.S. 533 (Supreme Court, 1922)
Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Chatters
279 U.S. 320 (Supreme Court, 1929)
Fullilove v. Central State Bank
107 So. 590 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1926)
United Oil & Natural Gas Products Corp. v. United Carbon Co.
131 So. 52 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1930)
State ex rel. Watkins v. North American Land & Timber Co.
106 La. 621 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1901)
McCane v. Barker Baking Co.
95 So. 227 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1922)
Buscher v. Southern Railway Co.
4 La. App. 653 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1926)
Delatour v. Southern Railway Co.
4 La. App. 658 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1926)
W. H. Hodges & Co. v. Pennsylvania R. R.
128 So. 52 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1930)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
132 So. 115, 171 La. 350, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/w-h-hodges-co-v-pennsylvania-r-la-1930.