Commercial Ins. Co. of Newark, N. J. v. Adams

• Decision Date: 04 April 1963
• Docket Number: No. 14085,14085
• Citation: 366 S.W.2d 801
• Parties: COMMERCIAL INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, Appellant, v. John Q. ADAMS, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 801

366 S.W.2d 801

COMMERCIAL INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, Appellant, v. John Q. ADAMS, Appellee.

No. 14085.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Houston.

April 4, 1963.

Rehearing Denied April 25, 1963.

Touchstone, Bernays & Johnston, Charles C. Sorrells, Dallas, for appellant.

Bates & Brock, Warner F. Brock, Houston, for appellee.

COLEMAN, Justice.

This is an appeal from an order of the trial court overruling a plea of privilege. The principal question involved is the constitutionality of Subd. 27, Article 1995, Revised Civil Statutes of Texas.

Appellant is a foreign corporation with its residence and principal place of business in Dallas County, Texas. The corporation is engaged in doing business in Harris County, Texas, and has an agent, a representative and an office in that County. Appellee filed suit in Harris County, Texas and, in a controverting affidavit to appellant's plea of privilege, alleged as exceptions to exclusive venue in the county of one's residence, Subdivisions 5, 23, 27 and 28 of Article 1995, R.C.S.

Appellee failed to introduce evidence to sustain venue in Harris County under Subdivisions 5 and 28. The judgment of the trial court cannot be sustained by reason of the provisions of either of those subdivisions.

Appellant contends that exception 27 of Article 1995, R.C.S., is void and unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution as affording a wider venue for actions against foreign corporations than is afforded against domestic corporations under Section 23 of Article 1995, R.C.S. Prior to 1943 the provisions of our statutes relating to venue for foreign corporations were substantially the same as for domestic corporations. Acts 1874, 14th Legislature, G.L., Vol. 8, Ch. 34, p. 32; subd. 21, Art. 1198, Rev.Civ.Statutes of Texas, 1879; Acts of 19th Legislature, 1885, G.L., Vol. 9, p. 699; Fireman's Fund Insurance Company v. McDaniel, Tex.Civ.App., 327 S.W.2d 358; Grayburg Oil Co. v. Powell, 118 Tex. 354, 15 S.W.2d 542.

In 1943, Subd. 23 of Art. 1995, R.C.S. was amended and now provides:

'Corporations and Associations.--Suits against a private corporation, association, or joint stock company may be brought in the county in which its principal office is situated; or in the county in which the cause of action or part thereof arose; or in the county in which the plaintiff resided at the time the cause of action or part thereof arose, provided such corporation, association or company has an agency or representative in such county; or, if the corporation, association, or joint stock company had no agency or representative in the county in which the plaintiff resided at the time the cause of action or part thereof arose, then suit may be brought in the county nearest that in which plaintiff resided at said time in which the corporation, association or joint stock company then had an agency or representative. Suits against a railroad corporation, or against any assignee, trustee or receiver operating its railway, may also be brought in any county through or into which the railroad of such corporation extends or is operated. Suits against receivers of persons and corporations may also be brought as otherwise provided by law.'

Subdivision 27 reads as follows:

'Foreign corporation.--Foreign corporations, private or public, joint stock companies or associations, not incorporated by the laws of this State, and doing business within this State, may be sued in any county where the cause of action or a part thereof accrued, or in any county where such company may have an agency or representative, or in the county in which the principal office of such company may be situated; or, when the defendant corporation has no agent or representative in this State, then in the county where the plaintiffs or either of them, reside.'

In Fireman's Fund Insurance Company v. McDaniel, supra, the Court of Civil Appeals at Beaumont in a carefully written opinion reviewing the applicable decisions held:

'We first note some of the inequalities in the administration of the two venue exceptions even where the terms are similar. As was held in Victoria Bank & Trust Co. v. Monteith, 138 Tex. 216, 158 S.W.2d 63, and Rogers v. Fort Worth Poultry & Egg Co., Tex.Civ.App., 185 S.W.2d 165, for a plaintiff to maintain venue against a defendant domestic corporation outside of the county where its principal office is located under Exception 23, he must prove a cause of action by the preponderance of the evidence on the venue hearing. It is not sufficient under that exception to make mere prima facie proof of a cause of action. But under the part of Exception 27 here referred to, he would not need to make any proof whatever of any cause of action at the venue hearing. South-western Greyhound Lines v. Day, Tex.Civ.App., 238 S.W.2d 258. A foreign corporation may be sued in any county where it has an agency or representative, without reference to the plaintiff's county of residence, and without reference to whether the suit is substantial enough that a cause of action could actually be proved upon the venue hearing.

'* * * The Saunders decision, Power Mfg. Co. v. Saunders, 1927, 274 U.S. 490, 47 S.Ct. 678, 679, 71 L.Ed. 1165, appears to be a culmination of a series of cases since the Greene case [Southern R. Co. v. Greene, 216 U.S. 400, 30 S.Ct. 287, 54 L.Ed. 536] extending the equal protection clause to foreign corporations and we believe it to be decisive of the constitutional question before us.

* * *

* * *

'We accordingly hold Sub. 27 of Art. 1995, Vernon's Ann.Civil Statutes of Texas, as amended, to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution as it relates to the venue of suits against foreign corporations of Fireman's Fund's status to the extent that it conflicts with the provisions of Sub. 23 of Art. 1995, as amended, by Acts. 1943, 48 Leg.'

This decision was cited as controlling by the Court of Civil Appeals at Eastland in Maryland Casualty Company v. Frank M. Torrez, 359 S.W.2d 559. An application for a writ of error in this case was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Texas for want of jurisdiction by written opinion, in which the Court pointed out: 'We should not be understood as implying that said subdivision 27 is unconstitutional or that the contrary is true.' Torrez v. Maryland Casualty Co., 363 S.W.2d 235 (Tex.Sup.). This Court, therefore, must determine the question of the constitutionality of Subdivision 27 after consideration of all the pertinent authorities.

In 1904 the Supreme Court of the United States decided the case of Cincinnati Street Railway Co. v. Snell, 193 U.S. 30, 24 S.Ct. 319, 48 L.Ed. 604. An Ohio statute provided:

'When a corporation having more than fifty stockholders is a party in an action pending in a county in which the corporation keeps its principal office, or transacts its principal business, if the opposite party make affidavit that he cannot, as he believes, have a fair and impartial trial in that county, and his application is sustained by the several affidavits of five credible persons residing in such county, the court shall change the venue to the adjoining county most convenient for both parties.'

There was no statute giving the corporation the right to a change of venue. It was contended that this constituted discrimination denying equal protection of the law in violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Court upheld the constitutionality of the act, saying:

'The proposition to which the case reduces itself is therefore this: That although the protection of equal laws equally administered has been enjoyed, nevertheless there has been a denial of the equal protection of the law within the purview of the 14th Amendment, only because the state has allowed one person to seek one forum and has not allowed another person, asserted to be in the same class, to seek the same forum, although as to both persons the law has afforded a forum in which the same and equal laws are applicable and administered. But it is fundamental rights which the 14th Amendment, safeguards, and not the mere forum which a state may see proper to designate for the enforcement and protection of such rights. Given, therefore, a condition where fundamental rights are equally protected and preserved, it is impossible to say that the rights which are thus protected and preserved have been denied because the state has deemed best to provide for a trial in one forum or another. It is not, under any view, the mere tribunal into which a person is authorized to rpoceed by a state which determines whether the equal protection of the law has been afforded, but whether in the tribunals which the state has provided equal laws prevail.'

However, in Power Mfg. Co. v. Saunders, 274 U.S. 490, 47 S.Ct. 678, 71 L.Ed. 1165 (1927), the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a statute of the State of Arkansas allowing a suit for personal injuries against a foreign corporation to be brought in any county of the state, where actions of the same character, if against a domestic corporation, had to be brought in a county where it had a place of business or in which its chief officer resided, and, if against a natural person, in a county where he resided or could be found. The basis for the decision is found in this quotation:

'The clause in the Fourteenth Amendment forbidding a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws (Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312, 333, 42 S.Ct. 124, 66 L.Ed. 254, 27 A.L.R. 375; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Vosburg, 238 U.S. 56, 59, 35 S.Ct. 675, 59 L.Ed. 1199, L.R.A.1915E, 953), and extends as well to corporate as to natural persons (Smyth v. Ames, 169 U.S. 466, 522, 18 S.Ct. 418, 42 L.Ed. 819; Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150, 154, 17 S.Ct. 255, 41 L.Ed. 666; Santa...