Old Wayne Mutual Life Association of Indianapolis, Indiana v. Sarah Donough

• Decision Date: 07 January 1907
• Docket Number: No. 57,57
• Citation: 204 U.S. 8,27 S.Ct. 236,51 L.Ed. 345
• Parties: OLD WAYNE MUTUAL LIFE ASSOCIATION OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, Plff. in Err., v. SARAH McDONOUGH and John Herrity, Administrator of the Estate of Winnifred Herrity, Deceased
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

204 U.S. 8

27 S.Ct. 236

51 L.Ed. 345

OLD WAYNE MUTUAL LIFE ASSOCIATION OF INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, Plff. in Err.,

v SARAH McDONOUGH and John Herrity, Administrator of the Estate of Winnifred Herrity, Deceased.

No. 57.

Argued October 25, 1906.

Decided January 7, 1907.

Mr. A. S. Worthington for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 9-12 intentionally omitted] No counsel for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice Harlan delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an action in an Indiana court against the plaintiff in error upon a judgment against it in a Pennsylvania court. The decisive questions in the case have reference to the clause of the Constitution of the United States, requiring full faith and credit to be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of other states, and, also, to the clause forbidding the deprivation by a state of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. There was a judgment for the plaintiffs, which was affirmed by the supreme court of the state.

The questions before us arise out of facts now to be stated.

On the 22d day of February, 1900, the defendants in error brought an action in the court of common pleas of Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, against the Old Wayne Mutual Life Association of Indianapolis, an Indiana corporation, upon a certificate or policy of life insurance dated December 3d, 1897, whereby that association agreed to pay to Winnifred Herrity and Sarah McDonough, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, or their legal representatives, the sum of $5,000 upon the condition, among others, that if the person whose life was insured—Patrick McNally, of Scranton, Pennsylvania—should die within one year from the date of the certificate, then Herrity and McDonough should not receive more than one fourth of the above sum. McNally died on the 14th day of November, 1898.

A summons, addressed to the sheriff of Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, was sued out and the following return thereof was made: 'Served the Old Wayne Mutual Life Association of Indianapolis, Indiana, an insurance company incorporated under the laws of the state of Indiana, by giving, September 26th, 1900, a true and attested copy of the within writ to Israel W. Durham, insurance commissioner for the state of Pennsylvania, and making known to him the contents thereof, the said association having no attorney in the state of Pennsylvania upon whom service could be made.' It does not appear, if the fact be material, that any notice of this summons was given by the commissioner to the defendant.

Subsequently, the plaintiffs filed a declaration or statement in the Pennsylvania case, which contained, among other things, the following: 'That the said the Old Wayne Mutual Life Association of Indianapolis, Indiana, defendant, is a mutual life insurance association, foreign to the state of Pennsylvania, to wit: of the state of Indiana, as aforesaid, and as such has been doing business of life insurance in the state of Pennsylvania, more particularly in the counties of Susquehanna and Lackawanna, in said state of Pennsylvania, issuing policies of life insurance to numerous and divers residents of said counties and state for many years, upon application therefor taken in said counties of Susquehanna and Lackawanna, and was transacting such business of life insurance in said state and counties on the 3d day of December, 1897, and before and since till July 5th, 1900, and after. That the said the Old Wayne Mutual Life Association has no duly appointed agent in said county of Susquehanna, state of Pennsylvania, for the acceptance of service of process other than the commissioner of insurance of the state of Pennsylvania. The writ of summons in this action, duly issued by the court of common pleas of Susquehanna county, directing the said defendant, the Old Wayne Mutual Life Association of Indianapolis, Indiana, to appear and answer, was legally and duly served on the commissioner of insurance of the state of Pennsylvania on the 26th day of September, 1900, the said commissioner of insurance for the state of Pennsylvania being the proper person for service in this case.'

This was followed by a notice in that case addressed to the insurance commissioner, and stating that judgment would be taken if no appearance was entered or an affidavit of defense filed by the association within fifteen days after service of that notice. At a later date, the insurance commissioner not having appeared, and no affidavit of defense having been filed, judgment was taken against the life association, by default, April 16th, 1901.

The present action was brought on that judgment. The complaint in this case, filed June 21st, 1900, alleged that the defendant association was, on the 3d day of December, 1897, and long prior and subsequent thereto, engaged in the transaction of business in Pennsylvania. After setting out the provisions of the statute of Pennsylvania (to be presently referred to), the issuing of the policy, the death of McNally, and the making of the requisite proofs of loss, the complaint alleged that process in the Pennsylvania case was served upon the insurance commissioner for Pennsylvania, 'the said defendant having no other agent or attorney upon whom process could be served in said state of Pennsylvania.'

The defendant demurred to the complaint as insufficient in law, but the demurrer was overruled. It then filed its answer, denying 'each and every material allegation' in the complaint. In a separate paragraph it alleged that its only offices for the transaction of business were, and at all times had been, at Indianapolis, Indiana, where its officers had always resided; that it had never been admitted to do business in Pennsylvania, and never had an office or agency there for the transaction of business; that no one of its officers or agents was in that commonwealth at the date of the alleged suit, nor had been there since; that no summons was ever served upon it at any time, and that it did not appear in that action; that no one ever appeared for it there who had authority to do so; and that the first notice or knowledge it ever had of the alleged judgment against it was long after the day when it appears to have been rendered.

The plaintiffs replied, denying each and every material allegation of the answer.

The plaintiff in error insists that the Pennsylvania court had no jurisdiction to proceed against it; consequently the judgment it rendered was void for the want of the due process of law required by the 14th Amendment. If the defendant had no such actual, legal notice of the Pennsylvania suit as would bring it into court, or if it did not voluntarily appear therein by an authorized representative, then the Pennsylvania court was without jurisdiction, and the conclusion just stated would follow, even if the judgment would be deemed conclusive in the courts of that commonwealth. The constitutional requirement that full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state is necessarily to be interpreted in connection with other provisions of the Constitution, and therefore no state can obtain in the tribunals of other jurisdictions full faith and credit for its judicial proceedings if they are wanting in the due process of law enjoined by the fundamental law. 'No judgment of a court is due process of law, if rendered without jurisdiction in the court, or without notice to the party.' Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34, 46, 38 L. ed. 896, 901, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1108. No state can, by any tribunal or representative, render nugatory a provision of the supreme law. And if the conclusiveness of a judgment of decree in a court of one state is questioned in a court of another government, Federal or state, it is open, under proper averments, to inquire whether the court rendering the decree or judgment had jurisdiction to render it.

Such is the settled doctrine of this court. In the leading case of Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, 468, 21 L. ed. 897, 901, the whole question was fully examined in the light of the authorities. Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the court and delivering its unanimous judgment, stated the conclusion to be clear that the jurisdiction of a court rendering judgment in one state may be questioned in a collateral proceeding in another state notwithstanding the averments in the record of the judgment itself. The court, among other things, said that if it be once conceded that 'the validity of a judgment may be attacked collaterally by evidence showing that the court had no jurisdiction, it is not perceived how any allegation contained in the record itself, however strongly made, can affect the right so to question it. The very object of the evidence is to invalidate the paper as a record. If that can be successfully done no statements contained therein have any force. If any such statements could be used to prevent inquiry, a slight form of words might always be adopted so as effectually to nullify the right of such inquiry. Recitals of this kind must be regarded like asseverations of good faith in a deed, which avail nothing if the instrument is shown to be fraudulent.' This decision was in harmony with previous decisions. Chief Justice Marshall had long before observed in Rose v. Himely, 4 Cranch, 241, 269, 2 L. ed. 608, 617, that, upon principle, the operation of every judgment must depend on the power of the court to render that judgment. In Williamson v. Berry, 8 How. 495, 540, 12 L. ed. 1170, 1189, it was said to be well settled that the jurisdiction of any court exercising authority over a subject 'may be inquired into in every other court when the proceedings in the former are relied upon and brought before the latter by a party claiming the benefit of such proceedings,' and that the rule prevails whether 'the decree or judgment has been given in a court of admiralty, chancery,...