Court Opinion

ID: 9699031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:07:39.224688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:45.841031
License: Public Domain

HOOD, Associate Judge
(dissenting).
I think the majority misconstrues the action of the trial court. The trial court did not reject appellant’s evidence as unsatisfactory. The court accepted the evidence and in view of it ruled that appellant’s affidavit was not in compliance with Code 1961, § 13-111, which provides that no order or decree be passed against a nonresident upon proof of notice by publication “unless the complainant, plaintiff, his agent, or solicitor, or attorney shall file in the cause an affidavit showing that at least twenty days before applying for such order or decree he mailed, postpaid, a copy of said advertisement, directed to the party therein ordered to appear, at his last known place of residence, or that he has been unable to ascertain the last place “of residence of said party after diligent effort to ascertain the same.”
Appellant’s evidence at trial clearly established that even if her husband had once *240lived at 6201 Loomis Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, he had not lived at that address for many years preceding the filing of this action; yet her attorney’s affidavit, purporting to comply with the Code Section, states that notice was mailed to the husband at that address. The requirement of the statute that notice be mailed' to the absent party’s “last known place of residence” does not mean the last place known to the plaintiff, hut the last place known to those who ordinarily would know it.1 The purpose of the statute is to require reasonable means of giving the absent party actual notice of the pendency of the proceeding. The Chicago address may have been the husband’s last place of residence known to the wife, but she knew that he had not livéd there for many years, and sending notice to him at that address was a perfectly useless thing to do.
If, after-diligent effort, the absent party’s last place of residence cannot be ascertained, the affidavit should so state, and then no notice is required to be mailed. The majority opinion says that the plaintiff’s evidence established that she had diligently tried to ascertain the last known place of residence, but evidence given at trial cannot be used as a substitute for the statutory requirement as to the filing of an affidavit. The statutory requirements for proceeding against a nonresident must be strictly followed or else the' court does not acquire jurisdiction. They were not followed here and I think the trial court correctly ruled that it lacked jurisdiction of the case. However, I think the trial court went too far in dismissing the action with prejudice. Failure to obtain proper service on the defendant should merely’stay the action until such service' can be obtained. It is not ground for dismissal.

. Hartley v. Vitiello, 113 Conn. 71, 154 A. 255; Glenn v. Holub, D.C.S.D.Iowa, 36 F. Supp. 941.