Brown v. Cuba-American Jockey Club

• Decision Date: 14 September 1925
• Docket Number: No. 327.,327.
• Citation: Brown v. Cuba-American Jockey Club, 7 F.2d 783 (S.D. Fla. 1925)
• Parties: BROWN v. CUBA-AMERICAN JOCKEY CLUB OF FLORIDA et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

7 F.2d 783 (1925)

BROWN v. CUBA-AMERICAN JOCKEY CLUB OF FLORIDA et al.

No. 327.

District Court, S. D. Florida.

September 14, 1925.

John W. Dodge, of Jacksonville, Fla., for complainant.

Cooper, Knight, Adair, Cooper & Osborne, of Jacksonville, Fla., for defendant corporation.

CALL, District Judge.

This cause comes on for a hearing upon the special appearance and motion to quash the service upon Havana Jockey Club and the motion to dismiss by the defendant Monohan.

Taking up the two motions of the Havana Jockey Club, based on its special appearances, the facts appearing in the files are that the Havana Jockey Club is a corporation organized under the laws of Cuba; that while its president and a person styled its general manager were within this District, not on the business of the corporation, they were each served with subpœnas, and it is this service which is attacked.

I think it is clear that an alien, coming within the jurisdiction of a United States District Court, may be sued within that district, provided legal service upon him may be obtained. The question, therefore, resolves itself into this: Does the marshal's return on the process show legal service? As I read and understand Goldey v. Morning News, 156 U. S. 521, 15 S. Ct. 561, 39 L. Ed. 517, this service was invalid, and confers no jurisdiction in this court over the person of the defendant corporation: "So a judgment rendered in a court of one state, against a corporation neither incorporated nor doing business within the state, must be regarded as of no validity in the courts of another state, or of the United States, unless service of process was made in the first state upon an agent appointed to act there for the corporation, and not merely upon an officer or agent residing in another state, and only casually within the state, and not charged with any business of the corporation there." Supra; Lafayette Ins. Co. v. French, 18 How. 404, 15 L. Ed. 451; St. Clair v. Cox, 106 U. S. 350, 357, 359, 1 S. Ct. 354, 27 L. Ed. 222; Fitzgerald Co. v. Fitzgerald, 137 U. S. 98, 106, 11 S. Ct. 36, 34 L. Ed. 608; Mexican Central Railway v. Pinkney, 149 U. S. 194, 13 S. Ct. 859, 37 L. Ed. 699; In re Hohorst, 150 U. S. 653, 663, 14 S. Ct. 221, 37 L. Ed. 1211.

It further seems to me that, construing section 2604 of the Revised General Statutes of the state of Florida, in the light of its language and other provisions relative to foreign corporations and service upon them, there is no difference in...