Baltimore Ohio Railroad Company v. Harry Hostetter

• Decision Date: 10 April 1916
• Docket Number: No. 245,245
• Citation: 240 U.S. 620,36 S.Ct. 475,60 L.Ed. 829
• Parties: BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. HARRY F. HOSTETTER
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

240 U.S. 620

36 S.Ct. 475

60 L.Ed. 829

BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v HARRY F. HOSTETTER.

No. 245.

Submitted January 25, 1916.

Decided April 10, 1916.

Messrs. George E. Hamilton, Francis R. Cross, and A. Hunter Boyd, Jr., for plaintiff in error.

Mr. W. H. Conaway for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 621 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

Hostetter, the defendant in error, a resident of West Virginia, sued in a justice's court in that state for wages due him by the railroad company, now plaintiff in error. The defense was that the wages had been paid by the railroad company as the result of a garnishment proceeding taken against it in the state of Virginia, where it was suable, to enforce a judgmenrt rendered in Virginia against Hostetter when he resided in that state, and after a domiciliary service on him. The case went from the justice's court for a de novo trial to the intermediate court of Marion county, where, as the result of a verdict against the railroad company, it was condemned to pay again, the court holding that the Virginia garnishment proceeding was not entitled to be enforced as against Hostetter under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution of the United States because he was not served with process in such proceeding, he then residing in West Virginia, although extrajudicial notice was given him by the railroad company of the proceeding. The case is here on writ of error to review the judgment of the court below, affirming that of the intermediate court, and whether proper force was given to the full faith and credit clause is the question for decision.

It is true that in the argument for the defendant in error various suggestions are made as to the insufficiency of the record concerning the existence of the Virginia judgment upon which reliance on the full faith and credit clause was placed, on the ground that the record contains mere recitals with reference to the judgment, etc., etc. For the sake of brevity we do not stop to review these suggestions, although we have considered them all, since we think they are not only without merit, but many of them are in effect frivolous, because in our opinion the record suffices to establish the facts which were stated by the court below as the basis for its judgment, and which we briefly recapitulate as follows:

The plaintiff in July 1911, resided in Clifton Forge, Virginia, and was indebted to one Wagner in the sum of $35, for which debt Wagner obtained a judgment against him in a justice's court of Virginia, based upon a summons served 'on said plaintiff . . . by delivering a copy thereof to the wife the plaintiff at his usual place of abode. ....