Court Opinion

ID: 9443144
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:12:18.229569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:23.268864
License: Public Domain

RUSSELL, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring) .
My independent opinion, if uncontrolled by Mississippi law, would be that the purpose and provisions of the Mississippi Code of 1942, Sections 1437-1440 rendered the appellee subject to the jurisdiction of the Mississippi Courts in this suit which arises out of the activities of the appellee in constructing a cotton gin for public trade and the installation of machinery therein, and, consequently, that service of process upon the Secretary of the State of Mississippi as the statutory agent of the foreign corporation was sufficient without regard to whether Brasher was an agent upon whom process could be effectively served. However, my views, which are substantially stated in the dissent of two Justices in Lee v. Memphis Publishing Co., 195 Miss. 264-278, 14 So.2d 351, 152 A.L.R. 1428, were necessarily rejected by the majority opinion in that case. It may be that this holding of the majority was modified by the later decision in Davis-Wood Lumber Co. v. Ladner, 210 Miss. 863, 50 So.2d 615, 622, 623, so that now the Mississippi Court would hold that the effect of the cited statute is not dependent upon a finding of transactions sufficiently numerous to evidence “presence” of the nonresidents in the state so as to subject it to suits generally, and that as to actions against non-residents accruing from the doing of “any business” or the performance of “any character of work” in the state the non-resident may be required to respond by process served upon the Secretary of State. However, while the later case intimates this trend, it does not so expressly declare and does not refer to Lee v. Memphis Publishing Co., supra. In these circumstances, I yield my doubts to the, views of my colleagues upon the applicable and controlling law of Mississippi, and concur in the judgment of affirmance.