Court Opinion

ID: 91547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:03:23+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:40.719510
License: Public Domain

116 U.S. 410 (1886)
EUREKA LAKE & YUBA CANAL COMPANY
v.
SUPERIOR COURT OF YUBA COUNTY.
Supreme Court of United States.
Submitted December 21, 1885.
Decided January 18, 1886.
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.
*413 Mr. A.L. Rhodes for the motions.
Mr. W.W. Cope opposing.
*415 MR. CHIEF-JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court. After stating the facts in the language reported above, he continued:
It does not appear affirmatively on the face of the record that the orders of the Superior Court were objected to in the Supreme Court on the ground that, in the absence of personal *416 service of the order to show cause on some officer, or authorized agent of the corporation, the judgment in the contempt proceeding was without due process of law, and therefore contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States; yet that point is made here, and it is possible its decision was necessarily involved in the final order that was made. For this reason the motion to dismiss is overruled; but there was sufficient color of right to a dismissal to warrant uniting a motion to affirm with the motion to dismiss, and on consideration of that motion we are entirely clear the case ought not to be retained for further argument. Section 187 of the Code of Civil Procedure in California is as follows:
"When jurisdiction is, by this code, or by any other statute, conferred on a court or judicial officer, all the means necessary to carry it into effect are also given; and in the exercise of the jurisdiction, if the course of proceeding be not specifically pointed out by this code, or the statute, any suitable process or mode of proceeding may be adopted which may appear most conformable to the spirit of this code."
Under this statute the courts of California hold that "when a party charged with contempt in disobeying a legal order wilfully conceals himself to avoid service of an order to show cause why he should not be adjudged guilty of contempt, the court is not powerless to proceed, or to prevent the continued disregard of its lawful order," but may order, as justice shall require, after due service of an order to show cause, on the attorneys of the party proceeded against. In Golden Gate Mining Co. v. Superior Ct., 65 Cal. 187, 192, the Supreme Court said: "The defendant in the action [a corporation] had entrusted its attorneys with the protection of its interests and the defence of its rights. We can see no abuse of authority on the part of the court in directing that the order to show cause should be served on an attorney, since it was made to appear that the defendant by reason of his own acts could not be served personally. The process was `suitable,' and the mode adopted by the court `conformable to the spirit of the code.'" The good sense of this rule is manifest. A corporation can only be served with process through some officer or agent. It is *417 certainly competent for a state to determine who this officer or agent shall be, or how he shall be designated by the corporation. In California a foreign corporation is required to make such a designation, and to give public notice thereof by filing the instrument of designation in the office of the secretary of State. After this suit was begun that agency was changed by this corporation, and the person designated, instead of being located at San Francisco, where he could be easily found, was at the mines. This change was made after the service of the injunction on the former agent, and after the court had determined that the service upon him was sufficient to bring the corporation into court. It was also made after the corporation had been guilty, as was alleged, of a violation of the injunction and after an attempt had been made to serve an order to show cause on Cahn, the old agent. The new agent was to be found only at a place difficult of access, and even there he kept himself concealed from the officer who had been charged with the duty of making the service. As he was the only person in the State on whom process could be served, his concealment to avoid service was in law the concealment of the corporation itself, and the court was left free to act accordingly.
By section 1209 of the Code of Civil Procedure of California "disobedience of any lawful judgment, order, or process of the court" is declared to be a contempt of the authority of the court. As was said by this court In re Chiles, 22 Wall. 157, 168, the exercise of the power to punish for contempt "has a two-fold aspect, namely: first, the proper punishment of the guilty party for his disrespect to the court or its order, and the second, to compel his performance of some act or duty required of him by the court, which he refuses to perform." This being the case, to deny the court the power of calling on a concealed corporation through its chosen attorney of record in a suit to appear and answer to a charge of contempt for disobeying the orders of the court duly entered in that suit, would be to deny it the power of vindicating its authority and enforcing obedience to its lawful commands against a party personally subjected to its jurisdiction. Although the proceeding may be *418 criminal in its nature, it grows out of the suit to which the person proceeded against is a party and actually represented by an attorney. Ordinarily a corporation has in such a case a right to service of an order to show cause upon some officer or agent, but if its officers or agents keep themselves out of the way for the express purpose of avoiding such a service, it cannot justly complain if service on its attorney is made the equivalent of that which its agents by their wrongful acts have made impossible. The same principle applies here that governed this court in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 158, where it was held that, although the Constitution gives an accused person the right to a trial at which he shall be confronted with the witnesses against him, yet, if a witness was absent by his own wrongful procurement he could not complain if competent evidence was admitted to supply the place of that which he kept away. It was said the Constitution "grants him the privilege of being confronted with the witnesses against him, but if he voluntarily keeps the witnesses away he cannot insist on his privilege." So here the corporation was perhaps entitled to service on its officers or agents, but as this was prevented by their wrongful acts, the privilege cannot be insisted upon.
The motion to dismiss is denied, but that to affirm is granted.