Court Opinion

ID: 9743038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:24:34.255008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:38.744635
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE DOOLEY, dissenting: Here the majority would grant this court’s extraordinary writ of mandamus to transfer these actions to one of the 19 counties in which petitioner admits it is doing business. Amongst these is St. Clair County, the seat of which is Belleville, less than 15 miles from Edwardsville, the seat of Madison County. This is not a forum non conveniens situation, but a matter of venue only. In our opinion it would be plain error to grant this writ. The considerations which we shall discuss in detail are these: (1) Mandamus is not a proper vehicle for the relief sought. It cannot be employed as an interlocutory appeal. Nor can issues of fact be determined in mandamus. (2) These actions are brought under an act of Congress (Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. sec. 51 et seq. (1970)). The rights created by them are Federal rights. Section 6 of the FELA (45 U.S.C. sec. 56 (1970)) makes a defendant amenable to process wherever it is doing business. It need not “be conducting its usual and customary business within the county in which venue is sought” as the majority holds. (3) The defendant is “doing business” within Madison County within the meaning of those terms in the FELA as they have been construed not only by International Shoe Co. v. Washington (1945), 326 U.S. 310, 90 L. Ed. 95, 66 S. Ct. 154, but also in a series of significant decisions. It is likewise doing business within the meaning of that phrase in our venue statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 110, par. 6(1)). (4) The Terminal Railroad Association (TRRA) is its agent under decisions of the United States Supreme Court and other courts; a summons served upon the TRRA representative in Madison County would be service upon the petitioner. We shall consider the foregoing seriatim. Mandamus is sought not only to order the respondent to act, but to act in a particular way. Whether the ruling of the judge was erroneous and, if so, to what extent, are matters which we are called upon to decide. But it is a well-established rule that “[f] or mere error, however gross or manifest, the remedy is an appeal or writ of error, and the writ of mandamus will not lie for its correction if the court has jurisdiction of the subject matter and the parties.” People ex rel. Barrett v. Shurtleff (1933), 353 Ill. 248, 259-60; People ex rel. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Clark (1958), 12 Ill. 2d 515, 523. Mandamus should not issue where its object is to circumvent the normal appellate process. (People ex rel. Sears v. Romiti (1971), 50 Ill. 2d 51, 55; People ex rel. Castle v. Spivey (1957), 10 Ill. 2d 586, 591.) Mandamus does not lie where the result is to fragment the appeal. (People ex rel. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Clark (1958), 12 Ill. 2d 515, 523; People ex rel. Clark v. McRoberts (1881), 100 Ill. 458, 461.) The proper remedy for errors in the trial proceedings is an appeal, not a petition for writ of mandamus. People ex rel. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Clark (1958), 12 Ill. 2d 515, 520. Highly analogous is a motion for change of venue. Although the motion may be improperly denied, mandamus will not lie to review such an order. In People ex rel. Clark v. McRoberts (1881), 100 Ill. 458, 461, this court, in denying an original application for leave to file a petition for a writ of mandamus from a denial of a change of venue, noted: “After an examination of the authorities, and the briefs of the parties, we are of opinion that the writ will not lie. *** If the writ was allowed in this case compelling the court to enter a mere interlocutory order, we see no reason why it might not be asked for and granted in every case while the suit was progressing, compelling the court to enter particular orders. In other words, it would be to bring up the case in fragments from the court below, and have every ruling of that court passed upon during the progress of the case, and in that way bring cases before the court where there was no final judgment or determination in the court below.” What reason compels a different rule here is not known. As if that were not enough, the petition raises issues of fact concerning the contacts of petitioner with Madison County. Such issues are not a proper consideration in original actions for a writ of mandamus. Only issues of law will be considered. Supreme Court Rule 381 (58 Ill. 2d R. 381); Touhy v. State Board of Elections (1976), 62 Ill. 2d 303, 312; People ex rel. Ward v. Moran (1973), 54 Ill. 2d 552, 557. That there are issues of fact here is evident from the majority opinion. “[T]he record is unclear as to the frequency and extent of the incursions” of petitioner’s trains into Madison County. Again, “the record does not, in fact, disclose that the TRRA is the agent of the B & O or that the B & O exercises any influence or control over the TRRA.” And again, “[u]pon the basis of the record before us, we cannot say that the TRRA was the legal agent of the B & O or that the B & O was operating its usual and customary business within Madison County under the aegis of the TRRA.” The impropriety of mandamus here is reinforced by the proposition that so long as the defendant makes a timely objection to the propriety of the venue, as was done here, its position is preserved (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 110, par. 8). United Biscuit Co. of America v. Voss Truck Lines, Inc. (1950), 407 Ill. 488, 501. It appears obvious, therefore, that the threshold question, namely, whether mandamus will lie here, must be decided adversely to petitioner. It is well established that the FELA confers Federal rights. These rights are governed by Federal law. Dice v. Akron, Canton & Youngstown R.R. Co. (1952), 342 U.S. 359, 96 L. Ed. 398, 72 S. Ct. 312; Brown v. Western Ry. (1949), 338 U.S. 294, 94 L. Ed. 100, 70 S. Ct. 105; Bowman v. Illinois Central R.R. Co. (1957), 11 Ill. 2d 186, cert. denied (1957), 355 U.S. 37, 2 L. Ed. 2d 49, 78 S. Ct. 63; Grunenthal v. Long Island R.R. Co. (1968), 393 U.S. 156, 21 L. Ed. 2d 309, 89 S. Ct. 331. So also is it fundamental that the decisions of the United States Supreme Court control State courts in actions under this statute. (Dice v. Akron, Canton & Youngstown R.R. Co. (1952), 342 U.S. 359, 96 L. Ed. 398, 72 S. Ct. 312; Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co. (1942), 317 U.S. 239, 87 L. Ed. 239, 63 S. Ct. 246; Harsh v. Illinois Terminal R.R. Co. (1953), 351 Ill. App. 272, appeal denied (1954), 2 Ill. 2d 631, rev’d on other grounds (1955), 348 U.S. 940, 99 L. Ed. 736, 75 S. Ct. 362.) When a State opens its courts to suitors under the FELA, it is “required to give petitioner [plaintiff] the full benefit of federal law.” (Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co. (1942), 317 U.S. 239, 243, 87 L. Ed. 239, 242, 63 S. Ct. 246, 250.) In Garrett, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in an action under the Jones Act, which incorporates the FELA by reference (46 U.S.C. sec. 688), held that since the plaintiff chose to bring his action in the State rather than in the Federal court, the court could employ State rather than Federal rules. But in a reversing opinion, the United States Supreme Court stated that the Jones Act, like the FELA, “is to have a uniform application throughout the country, unaffected by ‘local views of common law rules.’ Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U.S. 375, 392.” (Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co. (1942), 317 U.S. 239, 244, 87 L. Ed. 239, 243, 63 S. Ct. 246, 250.) This uniformity applies in each step in the litigation, from the pleadings to the appellate process. In Brown v. Western Ry. (1949), 338 U.S. 294, 94 L. Ed. 100, 70 S. Ct. 105, local rules of pleading could not impair these Federal rights. In Dice v. Akron, Canton & Youngstown R.R. Co. (1952), 342 U.S. 359, 96 L. Ed. 398, 72 S. Ct. 312, the validity of a release was to be determined by a jury, not by the judge, according to the State law, although the action was commenced in a State. Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co. (1942), 317 U.S. 239, 87 L. Ed. 239, 63 S. Ct. 246, deals with uniformity of burden of proof. The scope of review is part and parcel of the remedy under the Act. (Lavender v. Kurn (1946), 327 U.S. 645, 90 L. Ed. 916, 66 S. Ct. 740; Bowman v. Illinois Central R.R. Co. (1957), 11 Ill. 2d 186, cert. denied (1957), 355 U.S. 837, 2 L. Ed. 2d 49, 78 S. Ct. 63.) In Bowman the Illinois Appellate Court was prohibited from setting aside a verdict as contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence, although it had the unquestioned power to do so in other cases. Nor can a verdict be set aside by a reviewing court on the claim of excessiveness unless it would be a denial of justice to permit the verdict to stand. Grunenthal v. Long Island R.R. Co. (1968), 393 U.S. 156, 21 L. Ed. 2d 309, 89 S. Ct. 331. Here section 6 of the Act (45 U.S.C. sec. 56 (1970)) provides that an action may be brought in the district in which the defendant shall be “doing business” at the time of the commencement of the action, and that the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States shall be concurrent with that of the State courts. If the action may be maintained in a district court where the defendant is doing business, certainly it would appear that such is the test for whether such an action may be maintained in the State court. In Miles v. Illinois Central R.R. Co. (1942), 315 U.S. 698, 86 L. Ed. 1129, 62 S. Ct. 827, wherein the railroad brought an action in the Tennessee chancery court to enjoin the maintenance of an action under this statute in a Missouri court alleging that the decedent and the decedent’s children as well as the defendants were residents of Tennessee, the court, in a reversing opinion, after noting that the jurisdiction of the State’s court was concurrent with Federal jurisdiction, observed: “The opportunity to present causes of action arising under the F. E. L. A. in the state courts came, however, not from the state law but from the federal. By virtue of the Constitution, the courts of the several states must remain open to such litigants on the same basis that they are open to litigants with causes of action springing from a different source. This is so because the Federal Constitution makes the laws of the United States the supreme law of the land, binding on every citizen and every court and enforceable wherever jurisdiction is adequate for the purpose. *** Since the existence of the cause of action and the privilege of vindicating rights under the F. E. L. A. in state courts spring from federal law, the right to sue in state courts of proper venue where their jurisdiction is adequate is of the same quality as the right to sue in federal courts. ” (Emphasis added.) 315 U.S. 698, 703-04, 86 L. Ed. 1129, 1134, 62 S. Ct. 827, 830-31. In a concurring opinion in Miles, Mr. Justice Jackson observed: “Unless there is some hidden meaning in the language Congress has employed the injured workman or his surviving dependents may choose from the entire territory served by the railroad any place in which to sue, and in which to choose either a federal or a state court of which to ask his remedy. There is nothing which requires a plaintiff to whom such a choice is given to exercise it in a self-denying or large-hearted manner. There is nothing to restrain use of that privilege, as all choices of tribunal are commonly used by all plaintiffs to get away from judges who are considered to be usympathetic, and to get before those who are considered more favorable; to get away from juries thought to be small-minded in the matter of verdicts, and to get to those thought to be generous; to escape courts whose procedures are burdensome to the plaintiff, and to seek out courts whose procedures make the going easy.” 315 U.S. 698, 706-07, 86 L. Ed. 1129, 1135, 62 S. Ct. 827, 832. In the famous Kepner case, wherein an Ohio court sought to enjoin a railroad employee and citizen of Ohio from proceeding with the prosecution of his action under the FELA in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the court, in reversing, traced the history of section 6 and observed: “The language finally adopted must have been deliberately chosen to enable the plaintiff, in the words of Senator Borah, who submitted the report on the bill, ‘to find the corporation at any point or place or State where it is actually carrying on business, and there lodge his action, if he chooses to do so.’ ” Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co. v. Kepner (1941), 314 U.S. 44, 50, 86 L. Ed. 28, 31-32, 62 S. Ct. 6, 8. While we are aware that certain courts (Ledbetter v. Sanford (1947), 212 Ark. 277, 205 S.W.2d 464; James v. Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. (1949), 310 Ky. 616, 221 S.W.2d 449; Missouri Pacific R.R. Co. v. Little (Tex. Civ. App. 1958), 319 S.W.2d 785, 787) would take the position that State law on venue governs, nonetheless, we believe that venue under this series of United States Supreme Court decisions covering all phases of litigation under the Act is a federally protected right. Certainly the majority position is not illustrative of a liberal construetion of the Act and its humanitarian purposes — matters of which the United States Supreme Court continuously remind all inferior courts. Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R.R. Co. (1957), 352 U.S. 500, 509, 1 L. Ed. 2d 493, 501, 77 S. Ct. 443, 450; Urie v. Thompson (1949), 337 U.S. 163, 181-82, 93 L. Ed. 1282, 1299, 69 S. Ct. 1018, 1030; Lilly v. Grand Trunk Western R.R. Co. (1943), 317 U.S. 481, 486, 87 L. Ed. 411, 415, 63 S. Ct. 347, 351. As if that were not enough, our own venue statute provides the same “doing business” test as does section 6 of the FELA. The General Assembly in its wisdom has provided that “[a] ny private corporation or railroad or bridge company *** is a resident of any county in which it *** is doing business. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 110, par. 6(1).) Neither Congress nor the Illinois General Assembly has required that in order to be conducting business there must be a qualitative amount of “business activity” or that the party must “be conducting its usual and cústomary business,” or if a railroad be involved, it must operate “trains in Madison County on a scheduled basis.” We fail to see what right we have to engraft additional conditions upon the terms established by Congress and the Illinois General Assembly. Then, of course, there is the International Shoe Company decision (International Shoe Co. v. Washington (1945), 326 U.S. 310, 90 L. Ed. 95, 66 S. Ct. 154), where a court had jurisdiction of a defendant so long as the contacts of the party with the jurisdiction were sufficient not to offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. In International Shoe the defendant corporation had several commissioned salesmen who took orders in the State of Washington. It is true that International Shoe involved not venue but the issue whether the court had jurisdiction of the party. In a proceeding without jurisdiction of the party, certain basic due process principles are at issue. It would seem that if the contacts with the particular forum are sufficient to give a court jurisdiction on that basis, then it would follow that the corporation is doing business for venue purposes. Professor Moore in his work on Federal practice observed: “[W] e believe that if a corporation is amenable to service of process it should be held to be ‘doing business’ for venue purposes.” (1 Moore, Federal Practice sec. 0.142 [5. — 1—3], at 1411-13 (1974).) This is based upon the principles of fairness which constitute the foundation for International Shoe. If it is not unfair to subject a corporation to jurisdiction, it is not unfair to subject it to suit in a particular venue. Wright, in his treatise on Federal courts, concludes the sensible answer to the question of what is meant by doing business is to use the same test for both venue and jurisdiction. (Wright, Federal Courts sec. 42, at 176 (3d ed. 1976).) “There is much to be said for the view that if a corporation is doing enough business in a district to satisfy the constitutional tests on when it may be subjected to process there, that district should be a proper venue.” 15 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure sec. 3811, at 65 (1976). Incisively in point is Kilpatrick v. Texas & P. Ry. Co. (2d Cir. 1948), 166 F.2d 788. There the defendant operating a railroad in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana was sued' in the Southern District of New York. It allegedly maintained an office of eight employees who continually solicited business in New York. Judge Learned Hand held that the continuous solicitation of business was itself “doing business.” Kilpatrick cannot be distinguished from the instant situation. The antiquated character of the concept of venue expressed in the majority opinion is demonstrated by a 1914 United States Supreme Court decision, International Harvester Co. of America v. Kentucky (1914), 234 U.S. 579, 586, 58 L. Ed. 1479, 1482, 34 S. Ct. 944, which describes Green v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Ry. Co. (1907), 205 U.S. 530, 51 L. Ed. 916, 27 S. Ct. 595, as “an extreme case.” In this pre-International Shoe decision the court stated: “This was a course of business, not a single transaction. The agents not only solicited such orders in Kentucky, but might there receive payment in money, checks, or drafts. They might take notes of customers, which notes were made payable, and doubtless were collected, at any bank in Kentucky. This course of conduct of authorized agents within the State in our judgment constituted a doing of business there in such wise that the Harvester Company might be fairly said to have been there, doing business, and amenable to the process of the courts of the State. We are satisfied that the presence of a corporation within a State necessary to the service of process is shown when it appears that the corporation is there carrying on business in such sense as to manifest its presence within the State ***.” (234 U.S. 579, 585-89, 58 L. Ed. 1479, 1482-83, 27 S. Ct. 944, 946-47.) Such language is descriptive of the course of business the defendant did in Madison County. When it satisfied the due process concept of jurisdiction, it certainly met venue requisites as defined both by our statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 110, par. 6(1)) and the Act of Congress (45 U.S.C. sec. 56). The International Shoe decision was a response to the developed use of the corporate form of a business undertaking. It marked the formulation of a new due process test. Under its terms personal jurisdiction can be obtained, although the quantity of contact may be comparatively minor. In the final analysis the fairness element is controlling. In McGee v. International Life Insurance Co. (1957), 355 U.S. 220, 2 L. Ed. 2d 223, 78 S. Ct. 199, the only contact involved the issuance of a life insurance policy and the payment of premiums. The Empire Mutual Insurance Company, an Arizona corporation, issued a policy to a California citizen. Empire Mutual’s obligations were subsequently assumed by International Life. From Texas, International Life’s office, a reinsurance certificate was sent to the California insured whereby International offered to insure his life. The insured accepted the offer and continued to mail premiums from California to International’s office in Texas. Neither corporation had transacted or solicited business in California except with the insured. In an action in California to recover on the policy, the United States Supreme Court held that International Life, a Texas corporation, had the requisite “minimum contacts” to satisfy the International Shoe test. The court arrived at its conclusion by weighing the respective interests and determined that plaintiffs should not be forced to go to a distant State to hold the company accountable. It is true that the “minimum contacts” test is not easily defined. Yet it undeniably represents a balancing of interests — that of the defendant, that of the plaintiff, and that of the State in which the action is filed — to determine whether subjection to in personam jurisdiction of the particular court is offensive to well-established concepts of fair play and justice. Department of Revenue v. National Bellas Hess, Inc. (1966), 34 Ill. 2d 164, 175, rev’d on other grounds (1967), 386 U.S. 753, 18 L. Ed. 2d 505, 87 S. Ct. 1389, was an action to recover a summary judgment entered against the defendant in the circuit court of Cook County for sums assessed under the Illinois Use Tax Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1961, ch. 120, par. 439.1 et seq.). The defendant maintained in Illinois no office, distribution house, sales house or warehouse or any other place of business. It had no agents, saleman, canvasser, solicitor or other type of representative to sell or take orders, to deliver merchandise, to accept payments, or to service merchandise it sold. Nor did it own any tangible property in Illinois or have any telephone listing or advertisement in Elinois, From North Kansas City it mailed two catalogs annually to Elinois customers. This court predicated jurisdiction of the circuit court of Cook County upon the defendant’s continuous solicitation in Elinois and mailing of goods into this State. National Bellas Hess cannot be reconciled with the majority, That the defendant was doing business in Madison County is manifest from the consideration of the facts. It had three employees engaged in the continuous process of solicitation of business in this county. As a result of their work, the petitioner, over a period of five years, handled over 25,000 cars for Madison County shippers and collected over $10,000,000 from them during the same period. Madison County was the principal territory of its ticket manager, who not only sold the services of petitioner but aided Madison County shippers in getting necessary services from other roads. Petitioner’s trains with its yard crews would enter Madison County. As if that were not enough, the TRRA is the judicially defined agent and servant of the petitioner. The United States Supreme Court required that the TRRA be constituted “the bona fide agent and servant of every railroad line which shall use its facilities ” in order to avoid antitrust violations. (United States v. Terminal R.R. Association (1912), 224 U.S. 383, 410-11, 56 L. Ed. 810, 820, 32 S. Ct. 507, 516.) Subsequently, the Interstate Commerce Commission noted that “it is clear that the Terminal has adhered strictly to the mandate of the Supreme Court that it shall constitute itself as ‘the bona fide agent and servant of every railroad line which shall use its facilities.’ This, in a measure, supports the statement appearing in certain of our reports that the properties of the Terminal represent, in legal and practical effect, the extension of the east-side lines into St. Louis and of the west-side lines into East St. Louis.” (Laclede Steel Co. v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. (1937), 222 I.C.C. 321, 324. To that effect see Manufacturers Ry. Co. v. Ahnapee & Western Ry. Co. (1931), 172 I.C.C. 554, 563; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co. (1926), 113 I.C.C. 681, 685.) Obviously, service of process upon the TRRA in Madison County would be service of process upon the petitioner because of the relationship between petitioner and the TRRA. The TRRA, whose facilities are used by petitioner, admittedly operates trains in Madison County, and meets even the unique and extreme test of “doing business” articulated by the majority. We submit that in view of the foregoing, it is error to cause the writ of mandamus to issue directing the circuit judge to grant the motion to dismiss for improper venue. In our opinion, the petition for mandamus ought to be denied. MR. JUSTICE GOLDENHERSH joins in this dissent.