Court Opinion

ID: 9770454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:05:38.791938+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:17.471232
License: Public Domain

HYDE, J.
I respectfully dissent from the opinion of
Leedy, J. herein. I am unable to agree that Section 351.375, p. 4, (references are to RSMo. and V.A.M.S.) prevents the Circuit Court of Jackson County from having jurisdiction of the case of Yiola Johnson Whiteman v. Continental Baking Company and William E. Robertson. It is true that we held in State ex rel. O’Keefe v. Brown, 361 Mo. 618, 235 S. W. (2d). 304 that the provision of Section 351.375, p. 4 (“The location or residence of any corporation shall be deemed for all purposes to be in the county where its registered office is maintained”) applies for purposes of venue. Nevertheless; Section 508.040 provides in effect that corporations shall have residences for venue purposes “in any eounty where such corporations shall have or usually keep an office or agent for the transaction of their usual and customary business.” (State ex rel. Henning v. Williams, 345 Mo. 22, 131 S. W. (2d) 561.) It should be noted that the registered office of a foreign corporation need not even be the same as its place of business in this state. (Sec. 351.620.)
In the Williams case (131 S. W. (2d) l.c. 565) we said: “But all these decisions and the statutes cited show that a licensed foreign corporation must have one or more residences in the state where it is open to service. If that is so; and if under Sec. 723, supra, (now 508.040) when foreign or domestic corporations are sued alone, the venue of actions against them is in ‘any county where such corporations shall have or usually keep an office or agent for the transaction of their usual and customary business,’ we can see no reason why their residences should not be regarded as established in the same way when, perchance, they are joined as defendants with another, thereby fixing the venue under Sec. 720.” (Now 508.010) We held therein that service on defendant Shell Petroleum Corporation at its office in the City of St. Louis and service on defendant Henning, relator therein, in St. Charles County, where he resided, gave the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis jurisdiction to try the case. I cannot agree that this result is changed by the adoption of the hereinabove quoted general provision of Sec. 351.375, p. 4, as a part of the corporation code. While this provision is sufficient to authorize service on a corporation at its registered office, it is not a venue statute; and I do not think this general provision should be held to control over the specific provisions of Sections 508.010 and 508.040, *595wbieb were intended as venue statutes and which were left unamended. It is a well established rule of statutory construction that specific provisions prevail over broad general provisions (see 50 Am. Jur. 562-564, See’s. 561-562) whether prior or subsequent; and I do- not think it reasonable to hold that ■ any part of these specific venue statutes are repealed by implication by this broad general provision of See. 351.375 that does not even mention venue. I think the most reasonable construction is that it only adds another office (the registered office) tó those where service can be made and venue established.
I do not think State ex rel. O’Keefe v. Brown, supra, rules the situation herein presented, although there is language (235 S. W. (2d), l.e. 307) which is not in harmony with my views herein expressed, because in that case there was no' attempt to serve the defendant Crown Coach Company at any office in Dade County or any showing that it had any office in Dade County for the transaction of its usual and customary business. Therefore, it could not and did not decide the question herein presented.
Of course, a corporation cannot have a residence in the sense that a natural person does. ‘! Residence is an attribute of a natural person, and can be predicated of an artificial being only by a more or less imperfect analogy. Strictly speaking, a corporation can have no local residence or habitation. It has been said that a corporation is a mere ideal existence, subsisting only in contemplation of law — an invisible being which can have, in fact, no locality and can occupy no space, and therefore cannot have a dwelling place. However, the sovereignty creating the corporation may give to it a local habitation or residence in law, if not in fact.” (13 Am. Jur. 281, Sec. 147.) We have held that it can be given more than one at least for purposes of venue. Therefore, while by Sec. 351.375, p. 4, a corporation may have a residence at its registered office for all purposes including venue, I think it may also have other residences created by statute for purposes of service and venue; and that our statutes may be properly construed together as having that meaning.
I would order a peremptory writ.
Ellison, J., concurs.