Court Opinion

ID: 9705625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:14:22.803502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:12.764381
License: Public Domain

Hulbiird, J.
I dissent. Ever since the decision of Pennoyer v. Neff (1877) 95 US 714, 24 L Ed 565, (its Vermont counterpart being Price v. Hickok, 39 Vt 292) there has been a succession of attempts to find ways in which jurisdiction might be had over non-resident defendants. These efforts have largely been statutory in form. Here, however, the plaintiff is seeking the same end without benefit of statute. By embedding in the body of a long promissory note, a statement that the maker appoints the Secretary of State, State of Vermont, at Montpelier, Vermont, as his process agent, the plaintiff has undertaken to dispose of a good part of the problem once and for all. This is at once both ingenious and ingenuous.
Apparently, to the majority of the Court, this case presents no difficulty at all. Here, they say, the defendants have consented to the jurisdiction of the Vermont courts and have designated an agent to receive process to that end. Nothing more is needed.
I do not find it as easy as that. If we look at the facts for what they are, we soon discover that here is neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring. We have here no simple and definite appointment of a process agent. No individual is named; only *338an officer is specified. This instantly gives rise to the thought that he was intended to act in his official capacity; moreover this idea is not lacking in confirmation as we shall see shortly. In any event the question remains, what is the source of the Secretary’s obligation to act? From the law? There is no statute which puts upon the Secretary of State any duty to act in such circumstances as these. True, in other connections the Secretary of State has been authorized to do this sort of thing. That he was expected to do so here may be seen in the fact that when the copy of process was left with him, the plaintiff’s officer also put down a fee of $2.00 as if in accord with some statutory requirement. Such a procedure betrays the real nature of what we are dealing with. Lacking a definite appointment of a process agent, the plaintiff seeks to find support by adopting procedures employed under inapplicable but analogous statutes. In short, all that we have here is simulated service on a simulated process agent under a simulated statute. The plaintiff, in effect, has attempted to make service under a statute which isn’t there. I have labored long to make clear to my associates, what seems clear to me, namely, the effect of the so-called appointment of the Secretary of State as process agent.
If I may be permitted this figure of speech, what we have here, in effect, is a sort of "blind-date” — or an attempt at it— in which the parties never got together. The Secretary of State and the defendants are strangers to one another. Here was no basis upon which the plaintiff could presume to avail of the services of the Secretary. As I see it, a duty to act as process agent could only arise in one of two ways: by force of statute, or out of a principal-agent relationship in which this duty springs from an authority with which the agent has been specifically clothed. 42 Am Jur, Par. 51 at page 43. The payment of a fee in connection with the service to the Secretary of State rules out the latter theory. The plaintiff manifestly assumed an obligation on the Secretary of State’s part, in his ■official capacity, which could only arise from statute. It .should be clear that a private citizen can not impose a duty on a public official which is not put on the latter by law. When the plaintiff attempted service on the Secretary of State, no *339provision had been established by law, or by rule of court pursuant to law under which that official could act. Under such circumstances, he might properly disregard the copies which had been left with him, and so far as this case is concerned, we should assume that he did, for the test to be used in determining whether service is sufficient is whether it is such as would justify the Court in entering a default judgment as it stands. 72 CJS, Process, §25 at p. 1022; 50 CJ, p. 467, note 88 with cases cited.
The object of the service of process is two-fold: it is not only to bring the defendant under the jurisdiction of the court, but to give him notice of the pendency of the suit against him. McSwain v. Adams Grain and Provision Co., 93 SC 103, 114, 76 SE 117. If it is true that the defendants here consented to jurisdiction, their consent was one which contemplated process. That must mean due process. Whether one expressly consents to jurisdiction or whether that consent may be said to exist on the basis of a fiction as in the non-resident motorist cases, still notice to the defendant is essential and where there is no such adequate provision for notice to the defendant as to make it reasonably probable that such notice will be communicated to the defendant, service is invalid as lacking due process of law. Wuchter v. Pizzutti, 276 US 13, 48 S Ct 259, 72 L Ed 446, 57 ALR 1230. With no duty here resting on the Secretary of State, all was left to chance. This the plaintiff presumably knew when it accepted the note in question. The defendants being non-residents can not be said to have had the same knowledge.
For the reasons stated I can not bring myself to attempt to polevault to the result reached by the majority, especially where, as here, the pole is lacking. The decision of the majority, it seems to me, opens the door to endless mischief and abuse. If we put the stamp of approval on what we have here, then if a maker of a note purported to appoint a tree warden of a given town as his process agent, service on him would have to be sustained as valid under the opinion of the majority even though the likelihood of notice reaching the defendant would be about as great as if service had been made on one of the warden’s trees instead of himself. To go into the business of *340entering up default judgments in personam, on such service is unthinkable.
In overruling the defendants’ motion to dismiss, the county court rested its ruling on the narrow ground that the notice was signed by counsel for the defendants and not by the defendants personally. In doing so, the trial court purported to be following Leblanc v. Deslandes, 117 Vt 248, 251, 90 A2d 802. This case involved a plea to the jurisdiction. The court below assumed that this holding was equally applicable to a motion to dismiss. This was incorrect. A study of Leblanc v. Deslandes, supra, and Kenney and Downer v. Howard, 67 Vt 375, 379, 31 A 850, will serve to bring out the distinction. The ground upon which the trial court rested its ruling was unsound. The holding of the majority above tacitly recognizes this to be true. This would leave no ground upon which to support the action of the trial court provided the reasoning herein were followed. Since the majority of the court hold as they do an affirmance results. In my opinion, however, the defendants’ exception to the denial of their motion to dismiss should have been sustained and the plaintiff’s writ and process dismissed with costs.
Mr. Justice Adams has authorized me to state that he joins with me in this dissent.