White v. Garner

241 S.W.2d 518, 192 Tenn. 429, 28 Beeler 429, 1951 Tenn. LEXIS 425
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedJune 16, 1951
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 241 S.W.2d 518 (White v. Garner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
White v. Garner, 241 S.W.2d 518, 192 Tenn. 429, 28 Beeler 429, 1951 Tenn. LEXIS 425 (Tenn. 1951).

Opinions

Mr. Justice BurNett

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented for determination in this case is one of venue. The action was commenced and service of summons bad on the defendant in Humboldt, Tennessee, while in the jurisdiction of that court. To this summons, the defendant plead in abatement raising the question of whether or not, under the Statute creating the Law Court of Humboldt, a defendant could be sued in that court where and when he was a resident of a Civil District outside of that court’s territorial jurisdiction. The plea in abatement was demurred to by the plaintiff and upon consideration of these pleadings the court sustained the plea in abatement and dismissed the action. From this action of the court the plaintiff seasonably perfected his appeal to this Court.

The Law Court at Humboldt was created by the Public Acts of the General Assembly, 1868-69, Chapter 22. By the provisions of this Act a common law court was established at Humboldt including, among other Civil Districts, the Third Civil District of Gibson County, in [432]*432which the City of Humboldt is situated. The pertinent sections of this Statute are as follows:

“Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, That the Law Court of Hu-mholdt has general common law jurisdiction, original and appellate, in all cases at law, of a civil or criminal character, arising in the civil districts named in the first section of this Act, and that no resident of said districts shall be sued in the Circuit Court of Gibson County, nor presented or indicted therein, unless the offense was committed in the county out of said districts. Where the court has the jurisdiction of the cause of action, counterparts of writs may issue from said court for joint defendants residing out of said districts.
“Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, That except in real actions, where the lands lie in said districts, no citizen of Gibson County residing out of said districts shall be sued in said court, unless he waive his right to be sued in the Circuit Court of said county, by acknowledging service of the writ returnable to said special court.
‘ ‘ Sec. 4. Be it further enacted, That the Law Court of Humboldt shall have all the powers within the local jurisdiction that belong by law to the Circuit Courts of this State.”
“Sec. 7. That the Clerk of the Circuit Court, at Trenton, shall, upon application of either party, in person or by attorney, transfer any cases now pending in the Circuit Court of Gibson County, to the Law Court of Humboldt, where the defendant in such case is a resident within the jurisdiction of said court last named.”

The plea in abatement specifically sets forth the fact that the defendant was a resident of the Seventh Civil District of Gibson County, Tennessee, and was not a citizen and a resident of the Third Civil District of [433]*433Gibson County, Tennessee. The first portions of the Act creating the Law Court of Humboldt specifically exclude the Seventh Civil District of Gibson County, Tennessee, from the territorial jurisdiction of the Law Court of Humboldt. Statutes like the above permitting a defendant to have certain actions tried in the county or subdivision thereof where he resides ‘ ‘ aresremedial in nature and are liberally construed, to the end that a defendant may not be unjustly deprived of that right.” 56 Am. Jur., Sec. 28, page 30. With this sound legal proposition in mind let us briefly review the venue statutes of this State and some of the previous holdings applicable thereto.

Code Section 8640 provides: “In all transitory actions, the right of action follows the person of the defendant, unless otherwise expressly provided.” (Emphasis ours.)

The next Code Section, Sec. 8641, provides in substance that when both parties to the action live in the same county, that the suit shall be brought in that county. Code Section 8751 provides in substance that an action may be abated by the defendant where suit is brought in a different county from that required by law.

This Court has said on more than one occasion that “these (Code Sections last above referred to) provisions evince a legislative purpose to localize transitory actions.” Haynes v. Woods, 151 Tenn. 163, 268 S. W. 632, 633; McClearen v. U. S. Fidelity, etc., Co., 168 Tenn. 268, 77 S. W. (2d) 451; Thomas v. Altsheler, Tenn., 235 S. W. (2d) 806.

Two of the assignments of error are bottomed on Code Section 8640 above (transitory action section). A very able argument is presented on this feature of the [434]*434case. The plaintiff in error takes the position that since this section authorizes transitory actions to be brought where the defendant is found and that since the defendant in this case is found within the jurisdiction of the Humboldt Law Court, therefore, this general statute covering transitory actions will prevail over the special statute creating the Humboldt Law Court wherein citizens of another portion of the county are excluded from the jurisdiction of that court. It is not questioned that the present action is a transitory action, that is, one that might be brought anywhere as distinguished from a local action.

The argument based on these assignments as to Code Section 8640 is that if the trial court’s interpretation of the Statute creating the Law Court of Humboldt is upheld that this would in effect give the courts of Gibson County a greater power than have other Circuit Courts of the State, ‘‘without expressly so providing.” It is further argued that this interpretation of the trial court “would give the residents of Gibson County a distinct privilege not available to the residents of other counties of the State, that is, only residents of Gibson County could force a transitory cause of action to be brought in the court having territorial jurisdiction over their residents.”

We are forced to disagree with this argument because the Legislature in adopting the transitory action Code Section, 8640, expressly provided that these transitory actions might be had where the defendant was found “unless otherwise expressly provided.” The following Section as heretofore pointed out provides otherwise wherein it sets out that when both parties live in the same county the venue shall be in the county of their residence. [435]*435The present Act creating the Law Conrt of Humboldt is likewise a general act of the Legislature and it provides otherwise, that is, that residents of districts of Gibson County outside of the districts making up the Humboldt Law Court shall not he sued in that court. It was clearly within the province and right of the Legislature to create such a distinction. We have heretofore pointed out the fact that it is clearly the policy of the Legislature to localize these transitory actions when and if they deem it feasible and possible. This Act creating the Humboldt Law Court certainly was done for this purpose, that is, to localize insofar as Gibson County was concerned, the defendants of two sets of districts, one to be heard in the Law Court of Humboldt and the other in the Circuit Court of Gibson County at Trenton. The Legislature in creating this Act is presumed to have had a good reason to do so and we see nothing legally wrong with the Act.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
241 S.W.2d 518, 192 Tenn. 429, 28 Beeler 429, 1951 Tenn. LEXIS 425, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/white-v-garner-tenn-1951.