Cancelmo v. Seaboard Air Line Ry., 4295.

• Decision Date: 05 April 1926
• Docket Number: No. 4295.,4295.
• Citation: 56 App. DC 225,12 F.2d 166
• Parties: CANCELMO et al. v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

56 App. DC 225, 12 F.2d 166 (1926)

CANCELMO et al. v. SEABOARD AIR LINE RY.

No. 4295.

Court of Appeals of District of Columbia.

Submitted February 2, 1926.

Decided April 5, 1926.

E. L. Hunter and J. T. Crouch, both of Washington, D. C., for plaintiffs in error.

G. E. Hamilton, J. J. Hamilton, G. E. Hamilton, Jr., Edmund Brady, and H. R. Gower, all of Washington, D. C., for defendant in error.

Before MARTIN, Chief Justice, and ROBB and VAN ORSDEL, Associate Justices.

MARTIN, Chief Justice.

The partnership known as A. Cancelmo sued the Seaboard Air Line Railway in the municipal court of the District of Columbia, to recover the sum of $300 for loss and damage by reason of delay on 400 crates of egg plants shipped by one Peterson from Palmetto, Fla., May 9, 1923, to Cancelmo, at Philadelphia, Pa.

Summons was served upon the company by copy left with G. W. Vierbuchen as the agent conducting its business in the District of Columbia. A motion to quash the service was filed by the company, upon the ground, among others, that it was a foreign corporation which was not transacting business in the District of Columbia; that its only activity in the District was the solicitation of traffic and the employment of a general counsel; and that the company therefore was not subject to such a suit therein. The municipal court sustained this motion and quashed the service. This proceeding has been brought to review that order.

It appears in the record that the Seaboard Air Line Railway is a Virginia corporation having its offices at Richmond, Va.; that it is a common carrier of freight and passengers in interstate commerce, operating railroad lines in and through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama; that it does not own or operate any railroad line within the District of Columbia, nor at any place nearer thereto than Richmond, Va., nor does it operate any train or engage in the business of a common carrier in the District; that it does not maintain any office in the District of Columbia, nor does it employ any agents therein for the conduct of any of its business or affairs, except as shown by the following undisputed statement, to wit:

"The Seaboard Company, in connection with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, a corporation, occupies office space at 714 Fourteenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C.; that this office is in charge of G. W. Vierbuchen, its District passenger agent, and certain other assistants and employees; that the said G. W. Vierbuchen (who is also traffic representative of the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railway Company, a corporation hereinafter called the Richmond Company) is exclusively employed by the Seaboard Company to solicit freight and passenger business over lines of the Seaboard Company located outside of the District of Columbia; that (with the exception noted in paragraph 5 hereof) the other representatives of the Seaboard Company at 714 Fourteenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C., are engaged in and employed by the Seaboard Company for the purpose of soliciting passenger and freight business for the lines of the Seaboard Company outside of the District of Columbia; that the Seaboard Company is not the only carrier transporting passengers and freight south from Richmond, Va., and to secure such business originating in Washington, D. C., and north thereof, the Seaboard Company has representatives in Washington, D. C., whose function is to induce the diversion of such business to the lines of the Seaboard Company at Richmond, Va.; that neither the passengers nor the freight secured by these representatives for the Seaboard Lines south of the District of Columbia are carried by the Seaboard Company in the District of Columbia, but they are received, transported, and discharged by the Seaboard Company wholly outside of the District of Columbia.

"4. That the said Richmond Company, a Virginia corporation, engaged in the District of Columbia in the business of a common carrier of freight and passengers, maintains at the above address, 714 Fourteenth Street, Northwest, a ticket office for the sale of tickets; that the said G. W. Vierbuchen, of whom mention has been made, is traffic representative of the said Richmond Company, and Joseph Hurney, a representative of the Seaboard Company at 714 Fourteenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C., is also a city ticket agent of the Richmond Company; that the said Richmond Company, at the said office, through its said ticket agent, sells the usual form of railroad passenger coupon tickets, on which is indicated by printed legend the issue of the said tickets by the Richmond Company; that the said Richmond Company's coupon tickets entitle the purchaser to passage over the lines of the Richmond Company from Washington, D. C., to Richmond, Va. (by virtue of one coupon), and also from Richmond, Va. (by virtue of another coupon), over the line of the Seaboard Company to other points, none of them within the District of Columbia; that the said coupon tickets consist of a form of contract between the passenger and the Richmond Company and coupons attached; that in addition to the Richmond Company coupon for passage from Washington...