Court Opinion

ID: 9443812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:31:15.557252+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:36.663925
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
Every one of the forty-eight states and! the District of Columbia has a nonresident motorist statute. The first of these-was enacted in 1923 and the tide was almost full by 1934.18 Under such circumstances it seems reasonable and realistic— rather than “unreasonable” or “unrealistic”' *503—to hold that when a motorist drives his car into a state he does voluntarily perform an act which appoints an official of the state as his agent for service. As in Neirbo Co. v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 1939, 308 U.S. 165, 168, 60 S.Ct. 153, 155, 84 L.Ed. 167, he loses his venue privilege by “submission through conduct.” In Neir-bo the conduct was the voluntary express designation by the corporation of an agent for service. But Bethlehem did not expressly waive its venue privilege. Under the nonresident motorist statutes, a motorist does not formally or in writing designate the state official as his agent. He does not expressly say to the Secretary of State or the Registrar of Motor Vehicles, “I designate you my agent for service.” If he did so I conceive that the majority would concede that the venue privilege was waived. But this is just what the nonresident motorist does do in substance and effect when to-day he drives from one State and into another. There is but minuscule practical difference between the voluntary express designation by a corporation of an agent for service as in Neirbo, and the voluntary, though not express, act of the nonresident motorist, a natural person, whereby the state official is made his agent for service. In neither case is the venue privilege expressly waived. In both cases the privilege should be deemed to be waived for in each case the venue privilege is lost by submission through conduct.
The nonresident motorist entering the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should be deemed to be aware that he necessarily appoints a state official as his agent for service. And since service on this official under the state statute is also sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon the federal court under FRCP 4(d) (7), the motorist should also be deemed to anticipate being held to answer suit in such a court. Concededly, a state legislature cannot legislate effectively as to venue in a federal court. But while the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in enacting Section 1201, 75 P.S.Pa., providing that the motorist constitutes a state official his agent for service in the courts of the Commonwealth and “ * * * in the United States District Courts of Pennsylvania * * * ”, could not affect the federal venue statute, it did provide a basis for the conclusion that a motorist who subjects himself by his conduct to the jurisdictional provisions of the statute should also be deemed to waive his federal venue privileges.19
In Neirbo the Supreme Court pointed out that corporations do business outside their originating bounds and this fact made “intolerable their immunity from suit in the states of their activities.” As economic advances were made the law took the changed circumstances into consideration and, finally, in Ex parte Schollenberger, 1877, 96 U.S. 369, 24 L.Ed. 853, “Mr. Chief Justice Waite * * * displaced metaphor with common sense.” As was also said in Neirbo the decision in the Schollenberger case “was not a matter of technical legal construction, but a way of looking at corporations”, and “Men’s minds have become habituated to corporate activities which crossed state lines.” So here, save only that the Pennsylvania nonresident motor*504ist statute and' others substantially similar to it present a way, now hardly new, of looking at motorists who drive into a state for business or pleasure. The days when an interstate' motor trip was a high adventure and not a common course of con-' duct are gone with the 'solid rubber tire. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, authorizing a foreign corporation to do business within its borders, requires as a condition that the corporation appoint an agent for service in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, permitting — really, authorizing — a nonresident motorist to drive in the State, whether for business or for pleasure, imposes a substantially similar condition, viz., that he make a state official his agent for service. The question is really one of public policy as was pointed out in Neirbo. As Mr. Justice Frankfurter cogently stated, 308 U.S. at page 168, 60 S.Ct. at page 155, “Whether such surrender of a personal immunity be conceived negatively as a waiver or positively as a consent to be sued, is merely an expression of literary preference.” It is true that one of the purposes behind section 51, as it is behind newer section 1391(a) was to save defendants from inconvenience. Id. at page 168, 60 S.Ct. 153.20 But the convenience of defendants, whether corporations or natural persons, is a practical thing. One can well conceive of the respective States if the majority view prevails, creating ports of entry for the incoming nonresident motorist wherein he shall “sign in” and expressly designate a state official as his agent for service in case he has an accident within the State; otherwise, entry prohibited. The respective States coúld even compel the execution of an 'express, waiver of the federal venue privilege by the incoming motorist and such a course, I believe,, would meet no constitutional barrier.
The fiction employed in Neirbo is a useful legal artifact. I can perceive no reason why a similar artifact should not be employed in the instant case. All the circumstances seem, to call for its use. In the. present state of the law, including the forty-nine nonresident motorist statutes, it seems artificial not to employ the fiction and to hold that the nonresident motorist consents to be sued in the state when he enters it. As I have reiterated, it seems unreasonable at least under the circumstances at bar, to treat the motorist’s implicit consent to be sued in the state on a different basis from an express consent by him. If mine be a reasonable interpretation of the law and the operative facts it would seem to follow that the nonresident motorist should be deemed to have waived his venue privilege in a United States district court.
I do not agree with the reasoning or the conclusion in Martin v. Fischbach Trucking Co., 1 Cir., 1950, 183 F.2d 53. I agree with the conclusion reached in Olberding v. Illinois Central R. Co., 6 Cir., 1953, 201 F.2d 582.
For the reasons stated I must respectfully dissent from the view expressed by the majority.

. The first nonresident motorist statute was that of Massachusetts, enacted in 1923. Mass.Acts 1923, c. 431, § 2. This was held Constitutional in the leading Supreme Court case of Hess v. Pawloski, 1927, 274 U.S. 352, 47 S.Ct. 632, 71 L.Ed. 1091. Federal and state courts have upheld similar statutes in other states. See, e.g., Jones v. Paxton, D.C.Minn. 1928, 27 F.2d 364; Moore v. Payne, D.C.W.D.La.1929, 35 F.2d 232; Cohen v. Plutschak, D.C.N.J.1930, 40 F.2d 727; Morrow v. Asher, D.C.N.D.Tex.1932, 55 F.2d 365; State ex rel. Crohkhite v. Belden, 1927, 193 Wis. 145, 211 N.W. 916, 214 N.W. 460, 57 A.L.R. 1218; Ashley v. Brown, 1930, 198 N.C. 369, 151 S.E. 725; Hartley v. Vitiello, 1931, 113 Conn. 74, 154 Atl. 255; Shushereba v. Ames, 1931, 255 N.Y. 490, 175 N.E. 187.
Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Wisconsin are among the states which enacted nonresident motorist statutes prior to 1930. By 1934 thirty-five states had such statutes ini some form; and by 1938, of all the states, and the District of Columbia, only Missouri, Nevada and Utah lacked similar-laws. These states have recently joined: the majority. See Mo.Laws 1941, p. 435,. Mo.Rev.Stat.Ann. §§ 8410.1 — .14, 1943; Utah Laws 1943, H.B. 43, Utah Code-Ann. § 57-13-12, Supp.1943; Nev.Stats. 1949, p. 418, Nev.Comp.Laws § 4441.01,. Supp.1948-1949.
As early as 1932 the Uniform Motor Vehicle Code contained provisions similar to those of the Massachusetts statute. See 9 Uniform Laws Ann. 281 (1932). The state statutes have been exhaustively discussed and compared by legal writers. See Culp, Process in Actions against Non-Resident Motorists, 32 Mich.L.Rev. 325 (1934); Culp, Recent Development in Actions against Nonresident Motorists, 37 Mich.L.Rev. 58 (1938); Babbitt, Motor Vehicle Law § 372 (4th ed. 1933); 61 C.J.S., Motor Vehicles, § 502a; 5 Am.Jur. § 590.

. What lias just been said is in line with what was written by the Supreme Court in Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Harris, 1870, 12 Wall. 65, 20 L.Ed. 354, and Lafayette Ins. Co. v. French, 1856, 18 How. 404, 15 L.Ed. 451, and reiterated in Neirbo, as follows: “As to diversity cases, Congress has given the federal courts ‘cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States’. * * * The consent, therefore, extends to any court sitting in the state which applies the laws of the state.” See 308 U.S. at page 171, 60 S.Ct. at page 156, and note 7 cited to the text. As was pointed out in Angel v. Buffington, 1946, 330 U.S. 183, 187, 67 S.Ct. 657, 659, 91 L.Ed. 832, insofar as diversity jurisdiction is concerned, the United States district courts are “in effect, only another court of the State”. See also Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 1945, 326 U.S. 99, 108, 65 S.Ct. 1464, 89 L.Ed. 2079. In fact to take a contrary view is to destroy the symmetry of state and federal jurisdictions, long sought and eventually effected in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 1938, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188. As to the antiquity of the concurrent jurisdiction referred to see Section 11 of the Judiciary Act of 1787, 1 Stat. 78. Cf. FRCP 4(d) (7).

. I must concede that certain language used in the Neirbo case looks the other way insofar as the natural person as a defendant is concerned. For example in 308 U.S. at page 168, 60 S.Ct. at page 155, Mr. Justice Frankfurter states, “When the litigants are natural persons the conceptions underlying venue present relatively few problems in application.” See also note 15 cited to the text in Neir-bo, 308 U.S. 165, at page 173, 60 S.Ct. 153, at page 157, and the distinction set out therein in respect to In re Keasbey & Mattison Co., 160 U.S. 221, 229, 16 S.Ct. 273, 40 L.Ed. 402, “The decisive difference * * * [in Keasbey] is that in the latter case the designation under state law which is the basis of consent had in fact not been made.” But cf. Knott Corporation v. Furman, 4 Cir., 1947, 163 F.2d 199, where the defendant, albeit a corporation, had not expressly appointed the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia as its process agent but the fact that the defendant was doing business in Virginia was deemed a waiver of the venue privilege.
Generally on the subject of “submission through conduct” see Steele v. Dennis, D.C.Md., 1945, 62 F.Supp. 73, 74, (personal service was made on the motorist within the State), and Krueger v. Hider, D.C.S.C.,1943, 48 F.Supp. 708.