Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/98795/polizzi-vs-cowles-magazines-inc
Timestamp: 2016-10-23 06:28:34
Document Index: 647991330

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1391', '§ 1441', '§ 1332', '§ 1448', '§ 47', '§ 1391', '§ 1406', '§ 1391', '§ 1441', '§ 101', '§ 1391', '§ 1404', '§ 1391']

Polizzi Vs Cowles Magazines Inc - Citation 98795 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize Polizzi Vs. Cowles Magazines, Inc. - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/98795CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnJun-01-1953Case Number345 U.S. 663AppellantPolizziRespondentCowles Magazines, Inc.Excerpt:.....court of his home county. appearing "specially" in the local united states district court, the cowles corporation obtained an order for removal of the case from state to federal court. it asked the district court to dismiss the case without giving polizzi a chance to have it tried on the merits. the reasons urged were that cowles was an iowa corporation, was not and had not been "doing business" in florida, and consequently could not be sued in the florida court unless it consented to be sued there. the effect of this contention was that, while polizzi could bring his libel suit in a federal district court in the corporation's home state of iowa, no such suit could be maintained in a federal court in the state where polizzi lived and where the criminal charges were likely to do him.....Judgment:
Polizzi v. Cowles Magazines, Inc. - 345 U.S. 663 (1953)
the district court improperly dismissed the action for want of jurisdiction. The cause is remanded to that court to take jurisdiction of the action and determine whether it acquired jurisdiction of respondent by proper service. Pp.
345 U. S. 664
(a) 28 U.S.C. § 1391(c) is inapplicable to an action which has been removed from a state court to a federal district court, and the question whether respondent was "doing business" in Florida, within the meaning of that section, is irrelevant. Pp.
345 U. S. 665
(b) The venue of removed actions is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). Under that section, venue in this case was properly laid. Pp.
In a suit brought by petitioner in a state court, and removed by respondent to a federal district court, the district court dismissed the complaint for want of jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 197 F.2d 74. This Court granted certiorari. 344 U.S. 853.
Reversed and remanded to the district court,
345 U. S. 667
Respondent, an Iowa corporation which publishes Look magazine, maintains no offices in Florida, but sells its magazines to two independent wholesale companies which distribute them to retailers in Florida. Respondent does employ two "circulation road men" whose job is to check retail outlets in a multi-tate area which includes Florida. These two road men cover separate and mutually exclusive districts, and neither exercises any supervision over the other. Petitioner, a resident of Florida, brought suit against Respondent in the Circuit Court of Dade County, Florida, for allegedly libelous matter printed in Look magazine. Respondent moved to dismiss or in lieu thereof to quash the return of service, made on an agent of one of the distributing wholesalers. Before the state court acted on this motion, Respondent removed the action to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
28 U.S.C. (Supp. V) §§ 1332, 1441, 1446, 1447(b). That court issued an additional summons which was served on Briardy, one of Respondent's road men, "as a managing agent of [Respondent] transacting business for it in the Florida. . . ."
28 U.S.C. (Supp. V) § 1448; Fed.Rules Civ.Proc., 4(d)(3), (7); Fla.Stat.Ann. § 47.17(5). On Petitioner's motion, the original state court service was quashed. Respondent then moved the court "to dismiss this action or in lieu thereof to quash the return of purported or attempted service of the additional summons. . . ." The District Court, without passing upon the motion to quash the return of service, dismissed the action on the ground that it did "not have jurisdiction
Both courts below held that the District Court lacked jurisdiction, but they reached that conclusion by deciding that Respondent was not "doing business" in Florida within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. (Supp. V) § 1391(c). Section 1391 is a general venue statute. In a case where it applies, if its requirements are not satisfied, the District Court is not deprived of jurisdiction, although dismissal of the case might be justified if a timely objection to the venue were interposed. 28 U.S.C. (Supp. V) § 1406. But even on the question of venue, § 1391 has no application to this case, because this is a removed action. The venue of removed actions is governed by 28 U.S.C. (Supp. V) § 1441(a), and, under that section, venue was property laid in the Southern District of Florida.
Lee v. Chesapeake & O. R. Co.,
General Investment Co. v. Lake Shore & M.S. R. Co.,
Moss v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co.,
157 F.2d 1005. [
] The pertinent provisions of the two statutes are set forth in the margin. [
] Section 1391(a) limits the district in which an action may be "brought." Section 1391(c)
We express no opinion whether Respondent was "doing business" in Florida within the meaning of the due process requirements set out in
, because Respondent has not
test is not met. [
] Nor do we decide whether the District Court acquired jurisdiction of the person of Respondent by proper service, because the lower courts did not pass on the question of service. Therefore, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cause is remanded to the District Court to take jurisdiction of the action and determine whether the District Court acquired jurisdiction of Respondent by proper service.
1 Barron and Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 101; Charles W. Bunn, Jurisdiction and Practice of the Courts of the United States (5th ed., Charles Bunn, 1949), 146-148; Moore, Commentary on the United States Judicial Code, 199.
"(c) A corporation may be
in any judicial district in which it is incorporated or licensed to do business or is doing business, and such judicial district shall be regarded as the residence of such corporation for venue purposes."
"(a) Except as otherwise expressly provided by Act of Congress, any civil action
in a State court of which the district courts of the United States have original jurisdiction may be removed by the defendant or the defendants
to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place where such action is pending.
This Court reverses solely because both the District Court and the Court of Appeals, in dismissing, referred to and relied on the "doing business" provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1391(c), a venue statute not applicable to removal cases like this, but to suits originally filed against corporations in United States District Courts. For this reason, not suggested by Cowles or Polizzi, the Court refuses to pass on the "doing business" contention which Cowles did make and which both courts below decided. [
to be bound by old rigid concepts [
] about "doing business." Whether cases are to be tried in one locality or another is now to be tested by basic principles of fairness, [
] unless, as seems possible, this case represents a throwback to what I consider less enlightened practices.
But aside from what has been said, there is a new statute which gives an anachronistic flavor, a sort of irrelevance to all of Cowles' dilatory motions and arguments. I refer to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), which has codified the doctrine of
gives district judges broad powers to transfer civil actions from one district to another "in the interest of justice." [
] And the heart of Cowles' contention is that it would be unfair, inconvenient, and unjust to subject it to a suit in the District Court of Florida. But the Iowa corporation has not denied at all that it could be subjected to this libel suit in the federal district court in Iowa or in some other district where the corporation is "doing business." Therefore, the question Cowles has been raising from the beginning is: in what federal district court does the fair administration of justice require that this lawsuit be tried? This poses precisely the problem which the rule of
is designed to meet and solve. In light of that rule, I think we should reject Cowles' old dilatory motions and direct the District Court in Florida to try this case at once, unless Cowles can show that court that it would be in the interest of justice to try the case in another district. But the Court refuses to discard old outdated concepts for the new rule of convenience and fairness. Instead, Polizzi is sent back to the District Court, not to try his case on the merits, but to listen a few more years to a debate over whether Cowles has had adequate notice of this suit and whether the corporation is "doing business" in Florida. In the meantime, Polizzi stands convicted in the eyes of his community on the basis of an unproved story. At least since Magna Charta, some
people have thought that to delay justice may be to deny justice. I would order that Polizzi be given the trial he seeks. [
Evidence of a number of witnesses was heard on this "doing business" question. The District Court dismissed by finding "as a matter of fact that defendant was not at the time of the service of the summons, doing business in this district . . . ," and then related the dismissal to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(c). The Court of Appeals affirmed on the same ground, saying that the company could not "be said to be doing business in the state so as to be subject to suit there." It reached this conclusion because it thought the company's activities were not within "the meaning of doing business" as "discussed in the authorities" to which it referred, namely,
International Shoe Company v. Washington,
, and a number of other cases of this Court cited in footnote 2, 197 F.2d 74, 76. And, in this Court, the corporation argued specifically that
". . . the conclusion is inevitable that the courts below in holding that respondent was not transacting business in the Florida fairly followed the principles laid down in the
von Jhering, In the Heaven of Legal Concepts, translated in Cohen and Cohen, Readings in Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy, 678-689.
Travelers Health Assn. v. Virginia,
United States v. Scophony Corp. of America,
I agree that the District Court and the Court of Appeals erroneously referred to the wrong venue statute in deciding the question of "doing business." Like MR. JUSTICE BLACK, I think it unfortunate that this case must be prolonged by a remand to consider again the same "doing business" question under another statute. Unlike MR. JUSTICE BLACK, however, I find nothing in the majority opinion to suggest that the enlightened rationale of our more recent cases such as
, has been abandoned or impaired. Nor do I find any hint in the majority opinion that anything in the Constitution or other federal law prohibits the trial of this case in a United States District Court in Florida. My objection is that the majority have not ruled on this question at all.