Case Name: Albert C. C. West v. Malcom L. McClure
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1904-11
Citations: 85 Miss. 296
Docket Number: 
Parties: Albert C. C. West v. Malcom L. McClure.
Judges: 
Reporter: Mississippi Reports
Volume: 85
Pages: 296–300

Head Matter:
Albert C. C. West v. Malcom L. McClure.
1. Forms on Action. Tree cutting. Trespass quare clausum fregit. Assumpsit.
A connt in a declaration averring that defendant entered upon plaintiff’s land and cut trees and carried them away, and demanding the value of the trees so cut and carried away, and another count in the same declaration, averring that defendant entered upon plaintiff’s land and cut and carried away trees, ' whereby he became liable ,to pay plaintiff the value of said trees, and undertook and promised the plaintiff to pay him the value of said trees, are both in assumpsit, and not trespass quare clausum fregit.
2. Local Actions. Transitory actions.
An action of assumpsit to recover the value of trees cut by defendant on plaintiff’s land is not local, but is a transitory action; and the proper court of Tennessee has jurisdiction of such an action for trees cut in this state, the defendant being there found and served with process.
From the circuit court of Tunica county.
Hon. Samuel C. Cook, Judge. .
McClure, the appellee, was plaintiff, and West, the appellant, defendant in the court below. From a judgment in plaintiff’s favor the defendant appealed to the supreme court. The opinion states the facts of the case upon which the decision turned.
Perldns é Winston, for appellant.
The court should have overruled the demurrer to the plea setting up the want of jurisdiction in the Tennessee court to render the judgment sued on in this ease.
The plea shows that the circuit court of Shelby county, Tennessee, had no jurisdiction to render the judgment sued on. It shows that the real cause of action in the suit in Tennessee was a trespass to land situated in Tunica county, Mississippi, and that the judgment was rendered for this trespass; that the defendant in that suit was at the time of the alleged trespass, and continued to be afterwards, a citizen and resident of Tunica county, Mississippi; that while passing through Shelby county, Tennessee, as a traveler, he was sued in said circuit court in said suit, and that on the trial of the same no evidence was offered, except to prove said alleged trespass.
The court in that suit had jurisdiction only of the person' of the defendant. It did not have jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the suit, the real cause of action. • Jurisdiction is the authority to hear and determine a cause. To have complete jurisdiction in actions in personam, a court must have jurisdiction of the subject-matter as well as the person. 17 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, 1060; Foute v. McDonald, 27 Miss., 610.
Jurisdiction of the subject-matter of a suit is conferred by the sovereign authority of the state. 17- Am'. & Eng. Ency. Law, 1060; Gaoper v. Reynolds, 77 IT. S., 308. By jurisdiction of the subject-matter is meant the nature of the cause of action and of the relief sought. Cooper v. Reynolds> supra.
The real cause of action, if any, in the suit in Shelby county, Tennessee, arose in Tunica county, Mississippi, within the territorial limits and jurisdiction of the state of Mississippi, and was in its essential nature local. Only the state of Mississippi in its sovereign capacity had the right and power to confer jurisdiction to hear and determine such a cause of action.
It is a fundamental principle that the states of the union are sovereign as respects the power of one to affect the citizens of another by its judgments. Therefore state laws have no extra-territorial effect, and no state can extend its process beyond its territorial limits to subject either persons or property to its judicial decisions. No sovereignty can extend its process beyond its own territorial limits to subject either persons or property to its judicial decisions. Every exertion of authority of this sort beyond this limit is a mere nullity and incapable of binding such persons or property in other tribunals. The courts of a state are, however general may be their jurisdiction, necessarily confined to the territorial limits of the state. Any attempt to act upon persons or things beyond them would be deemed usurpation of foreign sovereignty not justified or followed by the law of nations. Such is the familiar, reasonable, and just principle of the law of nations, and it is scarcely supposable that the framers of the constitution designed to abrogate it between states which were to remain as independent of each other for all but national purposes as they were before the revolution. Certainly it is not intended to legitimate an assumption of extra-territorial jurisdiction which would confound all distinctive principles of separate sovereignty. Beering v. Banh of Charleston, 5 Ga., 497 (s.c., 3 Am.. St. Rep., 300); Weimer v. Weimer, 82 Va., 890 (s.c., 3 Am. St. Rep., 126) ; Piquit v. Swan, 5 Mason, 35; Steele v. Smith, 7 Watts. & S., 451; Lattimer v. Baihvay Co., 43 Mo., 105 (s.c., 97 Am. Dec., 378) ; Story on Conflict of Laws.
The action of trespass quare clausum is of that class which is not merely local in contradistinction to transitory, but it is local in a jurisdictional sense, because the cause of action is territorial, and no court has jurisdiction to try such cause outside of the sovereignty where the land is. Ellenwood v. Chair Co., 158 IT. S., 107; Northern, etc., R. Co. v. Michigan, etc., R. Co., 56 IT. S., 233; Allin v. Lumber Co., 150 Mass., 560 (s.c., 6 L. R. A., 416) ; Bodge v. Colby, 108 N. Y., 445; Niles v. Howe, 57 Vt., 391; BuBreuil v. Pac. Co.,) 130 Ind. (s.c., 29 N. E. Rep., 909) ; Morris v. Railroad Co.,-, 78 Tex., 17 (s.c., 22 Am. St. Rep., 22) ; Livingston v. Jefferson, 1 Brock., 203.
W. A. Percy, for appellee.
The jurisdiction of the Tennessee court to award judgment in an action for the value of timber cut on lands in the state of Mississippi is absolutely settled in the state of Mississippi by the ease of Evans v. Miller, 58 Miss., 120. This ease held that whenever timber is cut down and converted into logs an action in assumpsit can be maintained to recover their value. The declaration specifically alleges that “being so indebted for said trees cut, carried off, and converted to tbeir own use, tbe defendant undertook to pay,” etc. ..
Tbe same doctrine is reaffirmed in Alliance Trust Oo. v. Nettleton Hardwood Go., 74 Miss., 584, in wbicb it is beld tbat trover, purely a transitory action, is maintainable for timber cut.
Tbe gist of the action is not, as asserted by tbe appellant, tbe trespass on tbe close, but it is tbe conversion of tbe valuable timber to tbe use of tbe trespasser. It is not tbe.waste wbicb tbe trespasser has committed, but tbe benefit wbicb tbe trespasser has reaped, wbicb is tbe subject of suit; and the situation is identical with one tbat would arise where one entered tbe close of another and took therefrom valuable furniture or jewels, tbe taking and removing of tbe trees being a ground of action entirely independent from the trespass upon tbe close.

Opinion:
Calhoon, J.,
delivered tbe opinion of tbe court.
McClure, claiming to own some land in • Tunica county, Mississippi, finding West in Shelby county, Tennessee, sued him in tbat county and state, and bad him served there with process to defend bis action against him. McClure's declaration in tbe circuit court of Tennessee has two counts. Tbe first avers tbat West went on bis Mississippi land and cut trees, and claims in assumpsit the value of tbe trees so cut and carried off and converted to bis own use by West. Tbe second count charges tbat McClure "entered upon tbe said land and cut (tbe trees), and thereupon be became liable to tbe plaintiff (McClure) for tbe value of said trees, and thereupon be became liable," etc., and "undertook and promised to pay," etc. Both counts are clearly in assumpsit for values on tbeir face, and neither is technically for trespass quare clausum fregit. To this Tennessee declaration West pleaded not guilty, non assumpsit, and specially tbat be went on tbe land ¿nd cut tbe trees under a license from tbe then owner, and before McClure was owner. On these issues, and these only, trial was bad, and a verdict rendered for McClure, from judgment on which West appealed to the supreme court of Tennessee, which affirmed the judgment. Thereupon McClure sued West in Tunica county, Miss., on that Tennessee judgment, and West .pleaded that the Tennessee court had no jurisdiction, the action in its "second count being in fact trespass quare clausum fregit, which is local, and not transitory, the land being in.Mississippi; and'that the other -count was put in simply to prevent a plea to the jurisdiction, being a wrongful joinder of assumpsit with the trespass. A demurrer to this plea was sustained, and West declined to .plead further, and comes to this- court. The transcript of the1 Tennessee record discloses no testimony on either side, but the plea in'Mississippi avers that no evidence was offered on the claim in assumpsit, and that the jurisdictional point was made and overruled. As to this the Tennessee transcript is silent.
On these facts, and our view of Evans v. Miller, 58 Miss., 120 (38 Am. St.. Rep., 313), and Alliance, etc., v. Nettleton, 74 Miss., 584 (21 South. Rep., 396; 36 L. R. A., 155; 60 Am. St. Rep., 531), and Archibald v. R. R. Co., 66 Miss., 424 (6 South. Rep., 238), and the intimation in Oliver v. Loye, 59 Miss., 324, the case now 'before us is
Affirmed,