Court Opinion

ID: 6695956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 21:50:47.058679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:01:14.627993
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
dissenting: Eevisal, 439, provides that the summons shall be served by the officer “reading the same to the defendant, and such reading shall be a legal and sufficient service.” All this has been done in this case. Unless the court can legislate by putting into-the statute what the Legislature has not yet thought proper to put therein, this is “a legal and sufficient service.” The summons, it is found as a fact, was read by the sheriff to this defendant, and indeed there is no question as to that fact or as to his being sheriff or as to the identity of the defendant. What more can be necessary? Whether or not there might be greater or less certainty as to the identity of the defendant, in service by phone, when he is brought to the phone by an agent of the sheriff, or the sheriff recognizes him, is a matter for the Legislature, if that body should find that the law needs amendment.
As to the identity of the sheriff, that is a matter for the court on the service of every process which is authenticated by his signature. As to the identity of the defendant, the officer takes that risk, whether he sees him (for he may not know him personally except by information) or phones him. The sheriff is under the highest obligations to be certain as to the identity of the defendant, for he is acting under the oath of his office and is also liable under a heavy penalty for making a false return.
The law does not require that the sheriff shall “leave a copy” with the defendant. That was long since dispensed with. Nor has it ever required that he should see the defendant. There can be no question that a nearsighted sheriff or deputy could serve process, the identity of the defendant being in all cases a matter of which the officer must assure himself under liability to a penalty. If there is a mistake as to the identity of the defendant, he can avail himself of it equally whether the sheriff is immediately present, or is blind, or speaks over the phone*. In the Trojan War Stentor made his summons to surrender to the enemy the walls of Troy at a good distance, out of the reach of arrows, and the service was sufficient. In fact, in former days the heralds of opposing armies served their summons at a good distance by trumpet.
There is no statute and no decision that requires that the defendant shall see the paper, or read it himself, or that he shall know the identity of the officer. The court knows its own officers, and the defendant takes the risk if he does not recognize the officer’s authority. The officer takes the risk under his oath, and under a penalty, if he mistakes the identity *22of the defendant. Whether the service is on a defendant who was personally present or who is at the end of a phone, these principles apply.
In this day there is an urgent demand that courts shall reduce the time and expense of proceedings. Why should an officer ride all night over bad roads, and in bad weather, at great expense, to read a summons or a subpoena to a party who is needed in court next morning, when he can read the paper as intelligently to the party over the phone and with as much certainty of his identity as if he went to the locality and hunted him up. Indeed, when the service is made by phone the officer will take even greater precautions, because he cannot reach the party in that way unless he is brought to the phone, at his request by some agent of the sheriff, or voluntarily remains at the phone till the reading is completed.
It is suggested that “service by phone is not safe.” Millions of dollars in contracts are made every day over the phone, often at a long distance, between parties who do not see each other, but who are satisfied of each other’s identity, by taking proper precautions. The great transportation systems of the country find it safe to use the telephone in controlling the movements of trains on which depend the safety of thousands of lives and millions of property daily. Great armies, on whose movements rest the destiny of nations and the lives of thousands of men, are risked, every day, on the use of the telephone. Over the phone doctors give prescriptions on which the lives of patients depend, and lawyers give advice on which rest the disposal or transfer of property. Yet we are asked to say that it is unsafe for this officer to notify this defendant to appear before a magistrate in a small action involving a few dollars when it is found as a fact that this defendant was the proper party, that the officer was duly authorized, and that he fully read this summons to this defendant as required by the statute!
Why should the courts alone be deprived of the advantages of modem improvements, and retain every antiquated method as to service or as to pleadings, on the ground that it was “not thus done under the Saxon Heptarchy” ? It is a great saving of useless expense and of time to use this method of summoning jurors and witnesses and parties over the phone, of which bank officials, business men, railroad officers, and everybody else avail themselves. Indeed, there is less risk of imposition as to identity in the service of a summons or subposna than in any of the other businesses of life, for the reason that the officer being under a penalty for making an erroneous return, will take extra care in that regard. Besides, the party who is served can rarely, if ever, have any motive to assume to be the defendant when he is not. Moreover, he waives any other service, as this defendant did, by remaining at the phone until the entire summons is read to him.
*23If an officer should read a summons to a man on the other side of a screen, or of a curtain, or in another room; and his identity is certain, as is found in this case, and his hearing it is not denied, this surely would be sufficient. The invention of the phone has merely extended the range of the voice of the officer and of the hearing of the defendant.
The statute does not require that the officer should return that he "saw the defendant and read the summons to him.” But it only requires '“reading the same to defendant, and such reading shall be a legal and sufficient service.” For the Court to add the requirement that the officer “saw the defendant” is legislation by the Court, and will make a very considerable addition, of trouble and expense to the officers which the Legislature has not placed upon them.
'Whether the officer sees or does not see the defendant, it is a defense that he was not an officer, or that there was a mistake of identity as to the defendant, or that the summ.ons was not read to him. These defenses are in no wise affected by |he circumstance that the summons was read over the phone, or at a distance, or to one in another room. The statute does-not require the immediate presence of the defendant.
A captive with the Indians who received a letter told the chief its contents and from whom it came. The chieftain took the letter. He looked at it and saw nothing on it to that purport. He put it to his ears and heard nothing. He smelt of it and perceived nothing. He said that his captive was either a liar or a witch, and in either event he ought to be burned, and burned he was. The chief knew no other than oral means of communication.
When the invention of the telescope vastly extended human vision, Galileo, gauging the starry depths, announced that the world revolved around the sun, and not the sun around the world. The ignorant priests condemned him to be burned, and he only escaped by taking it back.
The most ignorant man in North Carolina now knows that by the invention of the telephone the range of the human voice and of human hearing has been lengthened. When this summons was read to the defendant by the officer over the phone (all of which are found as facts), it was the officer’s voice and not a substitute — as in the case of a telegram or letter — which the defendant heard, and the officer truly reported, as is found, that he had “read” the summons to him. The statute requires nothing more, and there is no reason that it should. A few years ago it might have been asserted that thus reading a summons to a man 9' miles off was a physical impossibility, and therefore on its face untrue. But modern invention has made it an ordinary occurrence. A conversation over the phone is competent in evidence; why not the “reading” of a summons, when the identity of the party is found as a fact?
*24This system of serving summonses and subpoenas is a great saving of expense and of time. It has been much resorted to in the courts, and now to hold it illegal may jeopardize the validity of many legal proceedings which have been based upon such service. In a practical age there is no reason why the courts should not avail themselves of the same conveniences which business men and indeed all others customarily use and have found to be safe and reliable as well as convenient. No statute forbids it, and the courts, in actual practice, have recognized and used it.
Note. — The General Assembly being in session, at once passed chapter 48, Haws 1915, authorizing service over the phone of subpoenas for witnesses and in summoning jurors, leaving still without legislation only the service of summons for defendants, which, however, is probably only about one-twentieth of the business, as witnesses and jurors are thus notified in both criminal and civil cases.
AlleN, J., concurs in dissenting opinion.