Doten v. Halby

• Decision Date: 01 December 1965
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 742.
• Citation: 252 F. Supp. 830
• Parties: Mrs. Myrtle DOTEN, Plaintiff, v. John H. HALBY and Radio Corporation of America, Inc., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee

252 F. Supp. 830

Mrs. Myrtle DOTEN, Plaintiff, v. John H. HALBY and Radio Corporation of America, Inc., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 742.

United States District Court E. D. Tennessee, Winchester Division.

December 1, 1965.

Doyle E. Richardson, Tullahoma, Tenn., for plaintiff.

A. Morris Hayes, Winchester, Tenn., for defendant.

NEESE, District Judge.

This is a diversity action. 28 U.S.C. § 1332. It is stipulated that at the time of the accident herein involved and at the time of the institution of this action: (a) the plaintiff was a citizen of Tennessee, (b) the defendant Mr. Halby was a citizen of New Jersey, and (c) the defendant corporation was incorporated by Delaware, was not incorporated by Tennessee, and had its principal place of business in New Jersey. These stipulated facts are sufficiently supported by the pertinent pleadings, as amended, herein.

The defendant Radio Corporation of America, Inc. now seeks a dismissal of this action against it on the ground that it was at the aforementioned pertinent times qualified to do business in Tennessee under T.C.A. §§ 48-901 — 48-906, inclusive; is "* * * entitled to all the privileges, rights, immunities, and subject to the liabilities of corporations * * *" incorporated by Tennessee, T.C.A. § 48-907; and, accordingly, is to be deemed a citizen of Tennessee for diversity purposes, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(c), destroying the necessary diversity of citizenship between the plaintiff and this corporate defendant.

This argument is rather ingenious, but the foregoing qualification of a foreign corporation to do business in Tennessee does not render the corporate defendant a Tennessee corporation so as to defeat the diversity jurisdiction of this court, the purpose of the Tennessee General Assembly in enacting Public Acts 1891, ch. 122, § 4, now codified as T.C.A. § 48-907, being merely to bring foreign corporations within the jurisdiction of Tennessee for purposes of taxation. Markwood v. Southern Railway Co., C.C.A. 6th (1895), 65 F. 817; see also 23 Am.Jur. 395, Foreign Corporations, § 388, 18 A.L.R. 136 and 72 A.L.R. 107. Mere domestication of a Delaware corporation by Tennessee does not give such Delaware corporation a legal domicile within Tennessee. Tennessee is powerless to confer, by domestication, any local citizenship on a Delaware corporation which would have the effect of impairing such corporation's rights as a citizen of Delaware. Harrison v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co. (1914), 232 U.S. 318, 34 S.Ct. 333, 58 L.Ed. 621, 626 (headnote 3), cited in 23 Am.Jur. 398, Foreign Corporations, § 392.

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