Case Name: Joseph G. STOKES, Petitioner, v. Lloyd BELL, Respondent
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1983-11-17
Citations: 441 So. 2d 146
Docket Number: No. 63132
Parties: Joseph G. STOKES, Petitioner, v. Lloyd BELL, Respondent.
Judges: ADKINS and OVERTON, JJ., and BEN C. WILLIS, Associate Justice, concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 441
Pages: 146–148

Head Matter:
Joseph G. STOKES, Petitioner, v. Lloyd BELL, Respondent.
No. 63132.
Supreme Court of Florida.
Nov. 17, 1983.
Dale E. Rice, Crestview, for petitioner. Lloyd Bell, in pro. per.

Opinion:
McDonald, justice.
The following question has been certified as being of great public importance:
SINCE SERVICE OF PROCESS ON A FLORIDA RESIDENT NORMALLY MAY BE EFFECTED STATEWIDE, IS THERE AN UNDERLYING POLICY REASON TO EXEMPT FLORIDA RESIDENTS FROM SERVICE WHEN ATTENDING COURT OUTSIDE THEIR COUNTY OF RESIDENCE IN THE SAME MANNER AS NONRESIDENTS OF THE STATE ARE EXEMPTED WHEN ATTENDING COURT WITHIN THE STATE?
Stokes v. Bell, 424 So.2d 949, 950 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983). We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(4), Florida Constitution, and we answer the question in the affirmative.
Stokes, the tax collector for Okaloosa County, sued Bell for nonpayment of real estate taxes. Service of process occurred while Bell was in the Okaloosa County Courthouse defending himself in an unrelated civil action. Bell filed a motion to abate for lack of personal jurisdiction, alleging his permanent residence and principal place of business to be in the Bahamas and that his wife and children reside at his temporary residence in Miami Shores, Florida.
The trial court, relying on State ex rel. Cox v. Adams, 148 Fla. 426, 4 So.2d 457 (1941), granted the motion to abate. The district court stated that it could not reconcile Adams with section 48.011, Florida Statutes (1981), which provides that service of process runs throughout the state. The court could not find that Adams had been receded from, however, so it affirmed the trial court's judgment and certified the question set out above.
As a general rule, "witnesses and suitors in attendance in court outside of the territorial jurisdiction of their residence are immune from service of process while attending court and for a reasonable time before and after going to court and in returning to their homes." Rorick v. Chancey, 130 Fla. 442, 453, 178 So. 112, 116 (1937), vacated on other grounds on rehearing, 142 Fla. 298, 195 So. 422 (1939). Rorick concerns a nonresident of Florida, but in Adams this Court extended immunity from service of civil process to Florida residents. In Adams a resident of Hillsborough County, Cox, had been charged with contempt in Lafayette County. While in court to plead to the information, the sheriff served Cox with a summons in an unrelated civil case. This Court cited Rorick and issued a writ of prohibition against proceeding in the civil case.
We find that valid policy reasons supported adoption of this rule and that those reasons are still valid. One reason for granting witnesses and suitors immunity from service of civil process is the due administration of justice:
As commonly stated and applied, it [the rule] proceeds upon the ground that the due administration of justice requires that a court shall not permit interference with the progress of a cause pending before it, by the service of process in other suits, which would prevent, or the fear of which might tend to discourage, the voluntary attendance of those whose presence is necessary or convenient to the judicial administration in the pending litigation.
Lamb v. Schmitt, 285 U.S. 222, 225, 52 S.Ct. 317, 318, 76 L.Ed. 720 (1932). In Lamb the Court went on to rely on Parker v. Hotchkiss, 18 F.Cas. 1137, 1138 (C.C.E.D.Pa.1849) (No. 10,739):
The privilege which is asserted here is the privilege of the court, rather than of the defendant. It is founded in the necessities of the judicial administration, which would be often embarrassed, and sometimes interrupted, if the suitor might be vexed with process while attending upon the court for the protection of his rights, or the witness while attending to testify. Witnesses would be chary of coming within our jurisdiction, and would be exposed to dangerous influences, if they might be punished with a lawsuit for displeasing parties by their testimony; and even parties in interest, whether on the record or not, might be deterred from the rightfully fearless assertion of a claim or the rightfully fearless assertion of a defence [sic], if they were liable to be visited on the instant with writs from the defeated party.
Parker points up another reason for the rule's existence, i.e., the fear that lack of immunity would have a chilling effect on a person's right of access to the courts and to defend himself. Even earlier than Parker, the New Jersey Supreme Court stated the same reasons for adhering to the rule of immunity from service of civil process:
This privilege of parties and witnesses, is alike the privilege of the court and the citizen. It protects the court from interruption and delay. It takes away a strong inducement to disobey its process: [sic] and enables the citizen to prosecute his rights without molestation, and procure the attendance of such as are necessary for their defence [sic] and support.
Halsey v. Stewart, 4 N.J.L. 420, 422 (1817).
These policy reasons — the due administration of justice and avoiding a chilling effect — are as valid today as when the Court wrote Rorick and Adams. Stokes attempts to distinguish Adams because that is a criminal case while the instant case is civil. We see no reason for such distinction, however, and hold that policy reasons do exist for exempting Florida residents from service of civil process while they are attending, or traveling to or from, court proceedings outside the county of their residence as witnesses or suitors. The district court's question is answered in the affirmative, and its opinion is approved.
It is so ordered.
ADKINS and OVERTON, JJ., and BEN C. WILLIS, Associate Justice, concur.
ALDERMAN, C.J., dissents with an opinion, in which BOYD and EHRLICH, JJ., concur.
An exception to this rule exists when process is issued in litigation incidental to or correlated with the subject matter of the case at bar, i.e., there is identity of parties and of subject matter. State ex rel. Ivey v. Circuit Court of Eleventh Judicial Circuit, 51 So.2d 792 (Fla.1951); Murphy & Jordan, Inc. v. Insurance Co. of N. Am., 278 So.2d 296 (Fla. 3d DCA 1973).