Court Opinion

ID: 9825876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 14:14:28.667569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:27.000508
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING McHaney, J. On the original hearing of this case, the judgment against the Gas Company was reversed and the cause dismissed, and that judgment has become final. The judgment against appellant Hursey was affirmed with a remittitur which has been entered. The judgment in favor of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company and Thompson, Trustee, was affirmed. Appellant Hursey, on petition for rehearing, has called our attention to the fact that he, a resident of Pulaski county and served with summons therein, was brought to trial in Clark county because his co-defendants, the Gas Company and the Railroad Company were found and served in that county, and that, before judgment he objected “to any judgment that might be rendered against him in the trial of this cause unless there is also a judgment rendered against one or more of Ms co-defendants.” The Clark Circuit Court acquired jurisdiction of him 'by reason of § 1398 of Pope’s Digest which provides: “Every other action may be brought in any county in which the defendant, or one of several defendants resides, or is summoned ” But by § 1400, Pope’s Digest, it is further provided: “Where any action embraced in § 1398 is against several defendants, the plaintiff shall not be entitled to judgment against any of them on the service of summons in any other county than that in which the action is brought, where no one of the defendants is summoned in that county, or resided therein at the commencement of the action, or where, if any of them resided, or were summoned in that county, the action is discontinued or dismissed as to them, or judgment therein is rendered in their favor, unless the defendant summoned in another county, having appeared in the action, failed to object before the judgment to its proceeding against Mm. ’ ’ While there was a judgment rendered in the lower court against the Gas Company, that judgment has been reversed and the cause dismissed, and, as said by the late Justice Butler, for the court, in Fidelity Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Price, 180 Ark. 214, 20 S. W. 2d 874, “The judgment of this court dismissing the case as.to the insurance company is therefore equivalent, and in legal effect the decision in the court below.” That case is exactly in point here and is controlling. Other recent cases on the subject are Harger v. Okla. Gas & Electric Co., 195 Ark. 107, 111 S. W. 2d 485, and Coddington v. Berry Dry Goods Co., 199 Ark. 1110, 137 S. W. 2d 249. The judgment as to Hursey will, therefore, be reversed and the cause dismissed, with leave to appellee, if he is so advised, to bring- another action against appellant Hursey where service may be had on him.