C. H. Leavell & Co. v. Doster, 44939
| Decision Date | 10 June 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 44939,44939 |
| Citation | 211 So.2d 813 |
| Parties | C. H. LEAVELL & COMPANY and Peter Kiewit Sons' Company v. J. V. DOSTER, d/b/a Central Gulf Construction Company. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
L. F. Sams, Jr., Daniel, Coker & Horton, Jackson, for appellant.
Bryant & Stennis, Gulfport, for appellee.
C. H. Leavell & Company and Peter Kiewit Sons' Company, both non-resident corporations, sued J. V. Doster, an individual doing business as Central Gulf Construction Company, in the Circuit Court of Hinds County to recover damages alleged to have arisen out of a contract between the plaintiffs and the defendant. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction and this motion was sustained and final judgment entered dismissing the case. From this judgment plaintiffs appeal.
The question involves a construction of Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated, section 1437 (Supp.1966), the so-called 'long arm' statute.
The corporate plaintiffs are both non-residents of Mississippi and both have qualified to do business in this state. The individual defendant, Doster, is a non-resident of the State of Mississippi and a resident of the State of Texas. The declaration alleges that the corporate plaintiffs, as joint venturers, were prime contractors in a construction contract at the NASA Test Facility near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and entered into a contract with the defendant, Doster, to perform a part of the work called for under the prime contract; that, in the performance of said contract the defendant, Doster, was doing business in the State of Mississippi and that the contract between the corporate plaintiffs and the defendant, Doster, was to be performed entirely within the State of Mississippi. It is not necessary to refer in further detail to the declaration except to state that the suit was based upon matters which arose out of the performance of the aforementioned contract.
The trial judge, in sustaining the motion to dismiss the suit for want of jurisdiction, held that defendant Doster was not subject to a suit in Mississippi by the corporate plaintiffs within the meaning of Section 1437. Section 1437 is in part as follows:
(a) Any nonresident person, firm, general or limited partnership, or any foreign or other corporation not qualified under the Constitution and laws of this State as to doing business herein, who shall make a contract with a resident of this State to be performed in whole or in part by any party, in this State, or who shall commit a tort in whole or in part in this State against a resident of this State, or who shall do any business or perform any character of work or service in this State shall, by such act or acts, be deemed to be doing business in Mississippi.
Subsequent provisions of the statute provide that the acts described in the first sentence of subsection (a) shall be deemed equivalent to the appointment of the Secretary of State of the State of Mississippi as the agent of such nonresident for the service of process in any action or proceedings accruing from such acts or arising from or growing out of such contract or tort.
The first sentence of subsection (a) of section 1437 provides for three...
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...law is found in the long-arm statute.7 This Court has interpreted the plain language found in that statute. In C.H. Leavell & Company v. Doster , 211 So. 2d 813, 815 (Miss. 1968) (emphasis added),8 this Court stated,[t]he defendant in this case is also subject to the jurisdiction of the cou......
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