Court Opinion

ID: 9639796
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:48:15.851629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:21.616760
License: Public Domain

SIBLEY, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
The appellants, defendants below, were served by the Marshal with a process signed by the Clerk of the Court and under the seal of the Court which fully described the parties and the case and stated the time and place of hearing, to which were attached a copy of the petition and of the order of the Judge allowing its filing and fixing a hearing twelve days later. None of these papers mentioned an interlocutory hearing or contemplated anything except a final trial. The defendants appeared in court and specially moved to dismiss the petition for want of jurisdiction in the court over their persons, since they resided in the Northern District of Florida. This motion was proper under Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b) (2), 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c. It was overruled and a trial had in which they declined to participate. The decree was for a perpetual injunction, and included a judgment overruling the special motion.
The defendants, as was their right under Rule 73(b) appealed from that part only of the decree which overruled their motion. They designated as record to be sent up only that bearing upon that motion, and in obedience, to Rule 75(d) served a statement of the points intended to be relied on, towit: 1. The Court erred in taking jurisdiction and making appellants parties. 2. Appellants could be sued only in the Northern District of Florida where they were inhabitants. I think it is the clear duty of the appellate court on such an appeal and on a record so made up to decide only the points specified. We all agree that they are not well taken, according to Public Utilities Commission v. Landon, 249 U.S. 236, 39 S.Ct. 268, 63 L.Ed. 577. The judgment ought accordingly to be affirmed.
But if we ought to go further and examine whether the process is sufficient to support a final decree the same result should be reached. The process was not merely the Judge’s order, but the Clerk’s paper, issued under the seal of the Court. It was more nearly in the old form than that suggested in the appendix to the Rules, Form 1, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, but it contained in substance what is required by Rule 4. I think its main irregularity lies in naming dates for pleading and trial earlier than the Rules fix, on this point following the order of the Judge rather than the Rules. This irregularity or insufficiency might have been objected to by motion, just as the venue was objected to, Rule 12(b) (4), but it was not. By the plain provision of Rule 12(h) the insufficiency of the process was thus waived. The defendants were content with the form of the process if they could be sued in the Southern District of Florida. This was again made perfectly clear when they appealed only on the question of venue and specified that as the only point relied on in the appeal. It would be a serious breach of the scheme of the Rules to allow a pleader to do away with Rule 12(b) and Rule 75(d) by calling his motion to dismiss a “special appearance”. The Rules provide for no such appearance, but they do give full protection to all the rights formerly preserved by such an appearance, in the motions provided in Rule 12. Granting that the process here was irregular, its insufficiency was waived and the judgment should be affirmed. There is no complaint that the final decree is wrong either in law or fact.