Case Name: Donna R. WOOD, Appellant, v. Calvin George MARTIN, Respondent
Court: Minnesota Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Minnesota
Decision Date: 1983-01-07
Citations: 328 N.W.2d 723
Docket Number: No. 82-661
Parties: Donna R. WOOD, Appellant, v. Calvin George MARTIN, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Western Reporter 2d
Volume: 328
Pages: 723–728

Head Matter:
Donna R. WOOD, Appellant, v. Calvin George MARTIN, Respondent.
No. 82-661.
Supreme Court of Minnesota.
Jan. 7, 1983.
Cloutier & Musech, Minneapolis, for appellant.
Lommen, Nelson, Sullivan & Cole and Mark Stageberg, Minneapolis, for respondent.

Opinion:
SIMONETT, Justice.
This appeal questions the validity of a service of process made under Minn.Stat. § 170.55 (1980), when, at the time service was made on the commissioner of public safety, the named defendant nonresident motorist was deceased. The trial court, on motion, dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction and insufficient service of process. We affirm.
Plaintiff-appellant Donna R. Wood was injured in a Minnesota auto accident on March 11, 1976, with defendant Calvin George Martin, an Iowa resident. On November 8, 1981, about 4 months before the expiration of the applicable 6-year statute of limitations, plaintiff commenced a Minnesota lawsuit against Martin as the named defendant. Pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 170.- 55, subd. 1 (1980), she filed a copy of her summons and complaint with the Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety and timely mailed a copy, together with notice of service and affidavit of compliance with the statute, to Calvin George Martin at his last known address in Milo, Iowa.
Unknown, however, to plaintiff, on February 22, 1980, some 20 months before service on the commissioner, Martin had died. His widow, on receipt of the mailed process, turned over the papers to the attorneys for her husband's estate, who forwarded them to Martin's auto insurer. On December 8, 1981, counsel retained by the insurer timely served an answer alleging lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendant, insufficient service of process, and the defense of the statute of limitations. The answer also alleged defendant Martin was deceased "as of the present time." This allegation might be construed to suggest, unfairly, that Martin was living at the time the summons and complaint were served, but the point is moot since plaintiff-appellant's brief states that "the attorneys handling Mr. Martin's estate contacted the attorneys for Appellant and acknowledged that the estate had notice of the claim" and "thereafter" forwarded the suit papers to the insurer. Thus, it is clear that sometime prior to December 8 plaintiff knew that at the time service of process was made on November 8 Calvin George Martin was then deceased.
After the 6-year statute of limitations had run, defendant moved to dismiss, and the trial court granted the motion. Plaintiff-appellant appeals, arguing that she had complied in all respects with section 170.55 and her service of process should be deemed valid. Subdivision 1 of that section provides in part:
The use and operation by a nonresident of a motor vehicle within the state of Minnesota, shall be deemed an irrevocable appointment by such nonresident of the commissioner of public safety to be his true and lawful attorney upon whom may be served all legal process in any action or proceeding against him or his executor, administrator, or personal representative *.** [S]uch process so served, shall be of the same legal force and validity as if served upon him personally or on his executor, administrator, or personal representative.
After appointing the commissioner the attorney-in-fact for service of process, the statute goes on to say that:
[S]uch service shall be sufficient service upon the absent resident or the nonresident or his executor, administrator, or personal representative; provided that notice of such service and a copy of the process are within ten days thereafter sent by mail by the plaintiff to the defendant at his last known address and that the plaintiff's affidavit of compliance with the provisions of this chapter is attached to the summons.
Plaintiff-appellant says she complied with the statute and that, therefore, in personam jurisdiction was obtained. It is not clear, however, over whom plaintiff claims to have obtained in personam jurisdiction. The summons and complaint named Calvin George Martin as the defendant but Mr. Martin is dead. No attempt has been made to substitute the personal representative of Martin's estate as the defendant, assuming such a personal representative exists. The respondent's counter argument is that defendant was dead at the time of the purported service and that, although plaintiff was aware of this fact and had time to do something about it, she never recommenced her lawsuit against the only proper party defendant, namely, the personal representative of decedent's estate.
We start with the initial premise that service upon a dead person is a nullity. At common law an action against a person individually abates with death. See Zahler v. Manning, 295 N.W.2d 511, 513 n. 2 (Minn.1980). When Calvin George Martin died on February 22, 1980, the cause of action against him abated, except that, by virtue of our survival statute, Minn.Stat. § 573.01 (1980), the cause of action survived "as against his personal representatives." As we pointed out in Poepping v. Lindemann, 268 Minn. 30, 35, 127 N.W.2d 512, 516 (1964), "a valid distinction is to be made between proceedings against an individual on the one hand and proceedings against his estate on the other" (a wife's cause of action against her husband "survives" against his estate upon his death so that interspousal immunity is not applicable).
A cause of action does not exist in the abstract; it exists against somebody. In this case, that somebody is Calvin George Martin while he is living, and, after his death, the duly appointed personal representative of his estate. The difficulty here is that plaintiff sued neither.
The commissioner of public safety is, of course, the irrevocably appointed attorney-in-fact for service upon either the individual motorist or the personal representative of the deceased motorist. But section 170.55 is not a survival statute. It does not appoint somebody against whom the cause of action exists. It only appoints somebody to accept service for whomever the proper defendant might be; and if there is no defendant in existence, service on the commissioner, as agent, is ineffectual.
Thus, the Maryland Court of Appeals has held invalid a service purported to be made on a nonresident defendant where the defendant died before the plaintiff initiated the action by leaving the process with the secretary of state and mailing notice to the named defendant. Hunt v. Tague, 205 Md. 369, 109 A.2d 80 (1954). This was so even though the named defendant's widow had signed a return receipt postcard. Thus, even though the decedent's widow, as in our case, was apprised of the suit, the Maryland court found lack of jurisdiction.
We agree with the reasoning of the Maryland court. We hold that service on a nonresident defendant motorist under section 170.55, at a time when the defendant motorist is deceased, amounts to service on no one and is void.
This does not, however, end our inquiry, even though this is the issue as submitted to us by the parties. The record does not tell us whether a personal representative for decedent Martin's estate was in existence at the time plaintiff attempted service. The fact that the widow delivered the suit papers to "attorneys handling Mr. Martin's estate" and that "decedent's estate received notice of the pending action" does not tell us if a personal representative had been appointed. Yet neither is there any denial that a personal representative was in existence, and at times the briefs of the parties argue as though there were.
Assuming the case were remanded and it be found that a duly appointed and acting personal representative of the estate of Calvin George Martin was in existence on November 8, 1981, then the question becomes: If service of process is made on a nonresident defendant motorist by service on the commissioner pursuant to section 170.55, as was done here, at a time when the defendant motorist is deceased but his personal representative is duly appointed and acting, is that service valid to obtain in personam jurisdiction over the personal representative? We need to consider this question in order to decide whether we should remand.
Two obstacles to the validity of the service present themselves: (1) the pleadings, as well as the mailed notice of service, name as the defendant a deceased person, Calvin George Martin, and not the personal representative; and (2) plaintiff mailed notice of service to Calvin George Martin at his last known address rather than to the personal representative at his or her address.
Are these two defects fatal to an effective service of process? Perhaps it can be argued (although we do not so decide) that failure to have the correct person named as defendant in the pleadings is a misnomer, correctable by amendment of the pleadings. It further can be argued that notice mailed to the deceased defendant if it actually reaches the personal representative should constitute adequate notice. Cf. Warembourg v. Chickasha Mobile Homes, Inc., 326 N.W.2d 16 (Minn.1982). Even assuming some validity to these arguments, the fact remains that there has not been strict compliance with the statute as required by our case law.
Service of process under section 170.55 is not complete when the commissioner of public safety is served. The proviso that plaintiff — not the commissioner, but the plaintiff — must within 10 days thereafter mail notice of the service, a copy of the process, and an affidavit of compliance with the statute to the defendant is essential to jurisdiction. The proviso is more than a condition subsequent, as the dissent suggests. This court has expressly held that the requirements of the proviso are jurisdictional and, therefore, mandate strict compliance. See, e.g., McBride v. Bitner, 310 N.W.2d 558 (Minn.1981) (filing process with the commissioner but with an untimely and incomplete mailed notice to the nonresident motorist is fatally defective); Schuett v. Powers, 288 Minn. 542, 180 N.W.2d 253 (1970) (mailing process to the commissioner and mailing notice to the defendant before the commissioner receives the process is fatally defective).
In Schuett we cited Johnson v. Brooks, 254 Iowa 278, 287, 117 N.W.2d 457, 462 (1962), in which the Iowa court said:
[I]t is not for us to regret that we have been compelled to follow strict and technical lines set out by our previous decisions. They seem to have established an orderly process of procedure and serve a definite purpose. They are more than technical. They have substance, in that they lay down definite rules which are essential in court proceedings and are necessary so that all those involved may know what may and may not be done, thereby avoiding confusion and uncertainty. Here we are satisfied they are sufficiently clear and definite as to the time and order of filing and notification, and that we should not open the door to endless litigation as to what is or is not substantial compliance with the plain statutory requirements to obtain service on a nonresident defendant.
Obtaining in personam jurisdiction over a person is a serious matter and we do not think this case presents an occasion to relax strict compliance with the requirements of section 170.55. Absent extraordinary circumstances, it seems to us process should be explicitly directed to the correct person being sued. This is not a situation where the plaintiff in good faith was unaware that the defendant was dead until after the statute of limitations had passed.
Here the plaintiff knew for at least 3 months prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations that the person named as defendant in her pleadings was deceased at the time of the purported service and yet, with ample time remaining, chose not to remedy the situation by making a new service on the decedent's personal representative. A new process could have been served before the statute ran on the personal representative then in existence, or, if none, then on a personal representative caused to be appointed by plaintiff. We see no need, therefore, to remand for any further factfinding because, in any event, there was not valid service.
Affirmed.
. Minn.R.Civ.P. 25.01(1) says, "If a party dies and the claim is not extinguished or barred, the court may order substitution of the proper parties." (Emphasis added.) This rule, however, presupposes that the named defendant has already been served properly and is a party, a different situation than we have here. The record does not disclose that plaintiff has moved, on the basis of the rule or any other basis, to amend her pleadings to substitute a personal representative as defendant in her lawsuit.