Case Title: Conner v. Willet

Citation: 91 So. 2d 225

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1956-11-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
91 So. 2d 225 (1956)
Lela Ard CONNER
v.
Edmund R. WILLET and Virginia Willet.
4 Div. 894.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
November 29, 1956.
*226 Reid & Enzor, Andalusia, for appellant.
Brooks & Garrett, Brewton, for appellees.
MERRILL, Justice.
Appellant filed suit against appellees, who were nonresidents of the State of Alabama, in the Circuit Court of Covington County on March 27, 1956, claiming damages for personal injuries sustained in an automobile accident in Conecuh County. Personal service was perfected on each of the appellees by the Sheriff of Escambia County on March 29, 1956. Within 30 days, the appellees filed a joint plea in abatement averring in substance that the Circuit Court of Covington County was without jurisdiction of the cause of action in that the defendants, appellees, were nonresidents of the State of Alabama, and the injury complained of occurred in Conecuh County.
Appellant filed a demurrer to the plea in abatement which was overruled. Thereupon appellant took a non-suit because of the adverse ruling on the demurrer. The judgment of non-suit is legally sufficient to support an appeal and appellant has appealed from the judgment of the circuit court.
The sole question presented is whether or not a suit for personal injuries may be maintained against a nonresident defendant in a county other than the county in which the cause of action arose, the defendant having been personally served with process while within this state; or, to put it another way, did the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Power Manufacturing Co. v. Saunders, 274 U.S. 490, 47 S. Ct. 678, 71 L. Ed. 1165, decided in 1927, overrule the case of Jefferson County Savings Bank v. Carland, 195 Ala. 279, 71 So. 126, 127, decided in 1916? The trial court adjudged that it did, saying in his written opinion, after discussing both cases, "This case (the Power case), as we view it, overrules the constitutional aspect of the Alabama case wherein Justice Sayre said that due process and equal protection are satisfied by any practice having sanction of common law usage".
We first consider our case, Jefferson County Savings Bank v. Carland, supra. There the Bank sued defendant Carland and others in Jefferson County. The defendants were nonresidents, their place of residence being in the State of Ohio. Process was served on them in Cullman County. They pleaded in abatement that they were subject to suit in this state only in the county in which they were found. We quote from the opinion of the court written by Sayre, J.:
This was the rule at common-law and the rule has been followed by the courts of several other states. See Zouck v. Zouck, 204 Md. 285, 104 A.2d 573, 105 A.2d 214; Alcarese v. Stinger, 197 Md. 236, 78 A.2d 651; State ex rel. Appelby v. District Court, 46 N.M. 376, 129 P.2d 338; Courtney v. Meyer, 202 S.C. 437, 25 S.E.2d 481.
There was no question of the constitutionality of such procedure as to nonresidents until the decision in Power Manufacturing Co. v. Saunders, supra.
The facts in the Power case were that Saunders and the company were nonresidents of Arkansas. The company had qualified to do business in Arkansas and maintained a warehouse at Stuttgart, which city was designated as its principal place of business, its agent for process resided there, and the company did no business anywhere else in Arkansas. Saunders was injured while working in the warehouse at Stuttgart, and he sued the company in a county other than the one in which Stuttgart is located.
The Arkansas statutes required actions of this character, if against a domestic corporation, to be brought in a county where it has a place of business or in which its chief officer resides, but if against a foreign corporation, to be brought in any county in the state. The company contended that this statute was unconstitutional because it was in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States, Justices Holmes and Brandeis dissenting, upheld this contention and said in part [274 U.S. 490, 47 S.Ct. 680]:
The Power case has been held to preclude any distinction at all between residents and nonresidents as far as venue is concerned. See Henry Fisher Packing Co. v. Mattox, 262 Ky. 318, 90 S.W.2d 70.
We do not think the Power case has the effect of overruling Jefferson County Savings Bank v. Carland, supra. The Power case deals with a foreign corporation. Our Constitution, § 232, and Tit. 7, § 60, Code of 1940, deal with venue of actions against foreign corporations. Tit. 7, § 60, also deals with venue of actions against domestic corporations and there is a distinction made as to the venue of personal injury actions against domestic and foreign corporations, but it has not been held that such distinction is unconstitutional.
Our venue statute here controlling is Tit. 7, § 54, which provides in pertinent part as follows:
Under this statute a plaintiff has the choice of filing his suit for personal injuries in either the county where the defendant resides, or in the county where the injury occurred. But one cannot sue a nonresident in the county in which he resides because there is no such locality in this state. If we limit the plaintiff to suing the nonresident in the county where the injury occurred, we are discriminating against our own residents. It seems to us that the nonresident natural person, in a situation such as this, has equal protection of the laws when he can be sued in any county in this state.
We think our statement quoted from the Carland case, supra, is sound and is not in conflict with the holding in the Power case. In addition to reaffirming the holding in the Carland case, supra, we think the language of the Supreme Court in Cincinnati Street Railway Co. v. Snell, 193 U.S. 30, 24 S. Ct. 319, 321, 48 L. Ed. 604, is applicable here. The court said:
We hold that there is no arbitrary discrimination against the defendants in the instant case, but that any difference between the venue of suits against residents and nonresidents is based on real and substantial grounds. The court below erred in overruling the demurrer to the plea in abatement.
Reversed and remanded.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and STAKELY, JJ., concur.