Court Opinion

ID: 9443950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:36:01.363634+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:25:10.549834
License: Public Domain

MURRAH, Circuit Judge (dissenting).
I suppose everyone of responsible age Is deemed, for the purpose of service, to have a “usual place of abode”. It is not necessarily his place of residence, for he may have both a residence and a usual place of abode. Nor is his usual place of abode necessarily his last place of abode, for he may change it every month. Earle v. McVeigh, 91 U.S. 503, 23 L.Ed. 398. Most courts agree that the usual place of abode is where a person is living at the particular time service is made. See cases collected State ex rel. Merritt v. Heffernan, 142 Fla. 496, 195 So. 145, 127 A.L.R. 1267.
The purpose of process is to give notice as a prerequisite to jurisdiction. Where, therefore, the actual notice of the suit is received, Rule 4(d) (1), F.R.C.P. should be liberally construed to effectuate service. Rovinski v. Rowe, 6 Cir., 131 F.2d 687. In determining the “usual place of abode” for the purpose of notice and service, consideration ought undeniably be given to the living habits of the defendant. If the defendant is an itinerant without any fixed dwelling or residence, or if the abode is not the residence, the migratory nature of the defendant becomes important to the question of usual place of abode.
The defendant here had lived in Amarillo, Texas, but at the time of the attempted service she neither lived, dwelled nor resided there. She occupied a room in a hotel in Raton, New Mexico, where she had come with her husband to race their horses, and she remained there on a monthly basis, occupying one room unless some member of the family came to visit. She intended to remain at Raton at least during the racing season there, but after an argument with the racing authorities, her husband said “I am going to quit Raton — I am going to take my horses up to Denver.” The husband spoke of different places he thought about going. When they left, the defendant paid the rent on one room at the hotel for one month and until August 13, 1952. She left some personal belongings there, but the evidence is undisputed that she never returned to Raton to live or even stay one night. Instead, she called the hotel to request that her personal belongings, including some furniture, be turned over to a storage company.
Coming to Denver with his horses, the husband rented a house and paid the rent. There was testimony, and the trial court found, that the son-in-law reimbursed the husband, but undeniably the whole family lived in Denver where the *796process was attempted to be served. When the process officer first called at the house, he was informed by the daughter that the defendant live there but was “down town”. When he returned, he was informed by the son that she “had not returned”. There is no positive testimony that she did not return,.the daughter merely testifying that to her knowledge she didn’t. The plain inference is that she either returned or left in flight to avoid process.
The trial court construed the evidence to indicate “very clearly that this may have been a temporary residing place of Mrs. Ingerton at the time this service was attempted * * * but was not her dwelling house or permanent place of abode.” But there was nothing in the record to indicate that the défend-ant’s usual place of abode was anything more than her temporary residence. ■ Indeed, the record clearly shows that as race horse owners, the Ingertons’ usual place of abode was wherever their horses happened to be running — at this particular time it was Denver, where the process was served on the defendant’s son.
I would sustain the service.