Carstens & Earles v. Leidigh & H. Lumber Co.

• Decision Date: 10 January 1898
• Citation: 51 P. 1051,18 Wash. 450
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: CARSTENS & EARLES v. LEIDIGH & H. LUMBER CO.

51 P. 1051

18 Wash. 450

CARSTENS & EARLES v. LEIDIGH & H. LUMBER CO.

Supreme Court of Washington

January 10, 1898

Appeal from superior court, King county; E. D. Benson, Judge.

Action by Carstens & Earles against the Leidigh & Havens Lumber Company. From a judgment in favor of defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

James Kiefer, for appellant.

Donworth & Howe, for respondent.

DUNBAR J.

This action was brought by the plaintiff, a corporation under the laws of the state of Washington, to recover a balance of $910.43 for goods sold and delivered to the defendant, a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Missouri. Service was had upon the president of the defendant corporation in King county. The defendant appeared specially and moved the court to set aside and quash the service of summons, and in support of its motion filed the affidavit of John H. Leidigh, the president of the defendant corporation showing that he was not a resident of the state of Washington; that on the 29th day of January, 1897, he came to the state of Washington, arriving at Seattle on February 2d and was served with summons by the appellant in this action on the following morning. Affidavits and counter affidavits were filed, the case was tried upon said affidavits, and a judgment was rendered in favor of the defendant, declaring the service of the summons to be void.

It is contended by the respondent in its motion to dismiss that this is not an appealable order; but, whatever might be said concerning an order refusing to quash a summons, we think it is evident that an order quashing a summons in effect determines the action or proceeding, and is therefore appealable, under the statute.

It is objected also by the respondent that no proper exceptions were taken in the lower court to any of the findings of fact or conclusions of law made by the court, and we think this objection well taken. This case was tried as a mixed question of law and fact, and tried exclusively upon the affidavits which were considered by the court, and the court made its findings of fact and its conclusions of law in regular form. The findings of fact not having been excepted to under the rulings of this court in Rice v Stevens, 9 Wash. 298, 37 P. 440, Hannegan v Roth, 12 Wash. 65, 40 P. 636, and many subsequent cases, the only question for this court to determine is, do the findings of fact warrant the conclusions of law? The court found that the defendant was a corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of the state of Missouri; that it had never appointed or had any agent residing in the state of Washington for any purpose whatever; had never done or carried on any business whatever in the state of Washington; had never had any property within the state of Washington; had never had an office for the transaction of business in any county in the state of Washington; and that it did not at any time have any officer or agent residing in any county in the state of Washington upon whom process might be served against said defendant company, or any officer or agent whatever of said defendant company. The appellant has based its argument so entirely upon the matters and things set up in the affidavits that it is of very little value to this court in determining the law governing this case, for, if we were to consider the affidavits, we might conclude that the transaction or sale had been made in the state of Washington; but the finding of the court is that the defendant has never done or carried on any business whatever in the state of Washington, and that John H. Leidigh, to whom a copy of summons and complaint were delivered, was at said time only casually and temporarily in the state of Washington, and has since departed therefrom; so that the argument of appellant made on the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th pages of its brief, in relation to the purpose for which Mr. Leidigh came to this state and the capacity in which he was acting, is not in point in the discussion of this case. We think, from an investigation of the cases cited by the appellant, that it has confused the idea of jurisdiction of states over foreign corporations with the idea of a proper service. It is not questioned, by any of the cases that we have seen, that where a summons has been served upon an officer of a corporation for whose acts the corporation is bound, where the statute provided for a legal service on such agents or parties, the jurisdiction of the state court over foreign corporations...