Baldwin v. Ionwa State Traveling Men Ass

• Decision Date: 18 May 1931
• Docket Number: No. 445,445
• Parties: BALDWIN v. IONWA STATE TRAVELING MEN'S ASS'N
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

283 U.S. 522

51 S.Ct. 517

75 L.Ed. 1244

BALDWIN

v IONWA STATE TRAVELING MEN'S ASS'N.

No. 445.

Argued April 22, 1931.

Decided May 18, 1931.

Messrs. Denton Dunn, C. W. Prince, and James Beery, all of Kansas City, Mo., and F. W. Lehmann, Jr., of Des Moines, Iowa, for petitioner.

Mr. J. M. Parsons, of Des Moines, Iowa, for respondent.

Mr. Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.

A writ of certiorari was granted herein¹ to review the affirmance by the Circuit Court of Appeals² of a judgment for respondent rendered by the District Court for Southern Iowa. The action was upon the record of a judgment rendered in favor of the petitioner against the respondent in the United States District Court for Western Missouri.

The defense was lack of jurisdiction of the person of the respondent in the court which entered the judgment. After hearing, in which a jury was waived, this defense was sustained and the action dismissed. The first suit was begun in a Missouri state court and removed to the District Court. Respondent appeared specially and moved to quash and dismiss for want of service. The court quashed the service, but refused to dismiss. An alias summons was issued and returned served, whereupon it again appeared specially, moved to set aside the service, quash the return, and dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction of its person. After a hearing on affidavits and briefs, the motion was overruled, with leave to plead within thirty days. No plea having been filed within that period, the cause proceeded, and judgment was entered for the amount claimed. Respondent did not move to set aside the judgment nor sue out a writ of error.

The ground of the motion made in the first suit is the same as that relied on as a defense to this one, namely, that the respondent is an Iowa corporation, that it never was present in Missouri, and that the person served with process in the latter state was not such an agent that service on him constituted a service on the corporation. The petitioner objected to proof of these matters, asserting that the defense constituted a colateral attack and a retrial of an issue settled in the first suit. The overruling of this objection and the resulting judgment for respondent are assigned as error.

The petitioner suggests that article 4, section 1, of the Constitution, forbade the retrial of the question determined on respondent's motion in the Missouri District Court; but the full faith and credit required by that clause is not involved, since neither of the courts concerned was a state court. Compare Cooper v. Newell, 173 U. S. 555, 567, 19 S. Ct. 506, 43 L Ed. 808; Supreme Lodge, Knights of Pythias v. Meyer, 265 U. S. 30, 33, 44 S. Ct. 432, 68 L. Ed. 885. The respondent, on the other hand, insists that to deprive it of the defense which it made in the court below, of lack of jurisdiction over it by the Missouri District Court, would be to deny the due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment; but there is involved in that doctrine no right to litigate the same question twice. Chicago Life Ins. Co. v. Cherry, 244 U. S. 25, 37 S. Ct. 492, 61 L. Ed. 966; compare York v. Texas, 137 U. S. 15, 11 S. Ct. 9, 34 L. Ed. 604.

The substantial matter for determination is whether the judgment amounts to res judicata on the question of the jurisdiction of the court which rendered it over the person of the respondent. It is of no moment that the appearance was a special one expressly saving any submission to such jurisdiction. That fact would be important upn ap peal from the judgment, and would save the question of the propeiety of the court's decision on the matter, even though, after the motion had been overruled, the respondent had proceeded, subject to a reserved objection and exception, to a trial on the merits. Harkness v. Hyde, 98 U. S. 476, 25 L. Ed. 237; Goldey v. Morning News, 156 U. S. 518, 15 S. Ct. 559, 39 L. Ed. 517; Toledo Rys. & Light Co. v. Hill, 244 U. S. 49, 37 S. Ct. 591, 61 L. Ed. 982; Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell, 245 U. S. 229, 38 S. Ct. 65, 62 L. Ed. 260, L. R. A. 1918C, 497, Ann. Cas. 1918B, 416; Morris & Co. v. Skandinavia Ins. Co., 279 U. S. 405, 49 S. Ct. 360, 73 L. Ed. 762. The special appearance gives point to the fact that the respondent entered the Missouri court for the very purpose of litigating the question of jurisdiction over its person. It had the election not to appear at all. If, in the absence of appearance, the court had proceeded to judgment, and the present suit had been brought thereon, respondent could have raised and tried out the issue in the present action, because it would never have had its day in court with respect to jurisdiction. Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. (85 U. S.) 457, 21 L. Ed. 897; Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 24 L. Ed. 565; Hart v. Sansom, 110 U. S. 151, 3 S. Ct. 586, 28 L. Ed. 101; Wetmore v. Karrick, 205 U. S. 141, 27 S. Ct. 434, 51 L. Ed. 745; Bigelow v. Old Dominion Copper Co., 225 U. S. 111, 32 S. Ct. 641, 56 L. Ed. 1009, Ann. Cas. 1913E, 875; McDonald v. Mabee, 243 U. S. 90, 37 S. Ct. 343, 61 L. Ed. 680, L. R. A. 1917F, 458. It had also the right to appeal from the decision of the Missouri District Court, as is shown by Harkness v. Hyde, supra, and the other anthorities cited. It elected to follow neither of those courses, but, after having been defeated upon full...