Court Opinion

ID: 9446655
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:00:39.884654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:44.088886
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
• I concur in the result because the dis'missal of the appeal leaves the order of the district court in full force and effect. Upon any subsequent trial the order and the able analysis of the issues in the district court’s opinion will serve as a guide for the trial judge. There can be no question that had a derivative stockholder’s action against the individual defendants for fraud and malfeasance been filed, personal jurisdiction would have to be obtained in the manner provided by law, i. e., personal service. In my opinion these legal requirements cannot be by-passed or evaded merely by adding a long factual narrative and a prayer for relief to a statutory action brought under the Investment Companies Act. The extent to which any or all of the facts alleged may be relevant to the claims made under the Act will be for the trial judge to determine.
Jurisdiction has been obtained as to the claim under the Act because extraterritorial service is specifically sanctioned by the Act. It is not for the courts to make up their own jurisdictional rules for each case. To declare the circumstances under which our citizens must respond to legal process is the function of Congress. Whether personal service should be limited is not open for judicial debate. The rules are clear and defendants as well as plaintiffs are entitled to equal protection under the law.
All defendants should be entitled to know the charges to which they must respond. Where no jurisdiction has been obtained there is no such duty. The district court has separated the two areas. Were plaintiff’s tactics in pleading fol*199lowed a plaintiff might well include in a foreclosure action tort allegations for negligence arising out of an accident on the property under foreclosure and claim that since the defendant would probably respond to service by publication or mail that all controversies might as well be disposed of at the same time.
Here jurisdiction has been obtained so far as the claim may arise under the Act and service has been quashed as to any other claim. Therefore the area of controversy is sufficiently defined in the district court’s order.