Federal Land Bank of St. Louis v. Priddy

• Decision Date: 18 June 1934
• Docket Number: 4-3515
• Citation: 74 S.W.2d 222,189 Ark. 438
• Parties: FEDERAL LAND BANK OF ST. LOUIS v. PRIDDY
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

74 S.W.2d 222

189 Ark. 438

FEDERAL LAND BANK OF ST. LOUIS v. PRIDDY

4-3515

Supreme Court of Arkansas

June 18, 1934

Prohibition to Pope Circuit Court; A. B. Priddy, Judge; writ denied.

Writ denied.

Guy V Head, J. R. Crocker and L. F. Reeder, for petitioner.

C. C Wait, for respondent.

HUMPHREYS J. MCHANEY and BUTLER, JJ., dissent. SMITH and MEHAFFY, JJ concur in the result.

OPINION

HUMPHREYS, J.

This is an application to this court for a writ of prohibition to prevent the circuit court of Pope County, Arkansas, fro proceeding with the trial of the case of S. M. Brisco v. the Federal Land Bank of St. Louis, a corporation, upon constructive service. Constructive service was obtained under the provisions of our statute (Crawford & Moses' Digest, §§ 1159-1160) by suing out a general writ of attachment on the ground that the Federal Land Bank of St. Louis was a foreign corporation and by levying same upon land in Pope County belonging to said corporation and duly publishing a warning order notifying said corporation to appear in said court and defend the action.

The petitioner herein appeared in response to the warning order for the sole purpose of contesting the service and filed an unverified motion to quash the service on the grounds: first, that it was not a foreign corporation; and, second, that its property in the State of Arkansas is not subject to attachment because said corporation is an instrumentality of the government of the United States.

The motion was overruled, and this application for a writ of prohibition followed.

The basis of this suit was a claim for a commission of $ 300 alleged to have been earned by a duly licensed real estate broker for the sale of a farm valued at $ 6,000, acquired by the Federal Land Bank of St. Louis, Missouri, through foreclosure proceedings to enforce the collection of money it had loaned.

Personal service could not be obtained because the Federal Land Bank of St. Louis, Missouri, had not, and was not required to maintain, a branch office in the State of Arkansas nor to designate an agent in the State of Arkansas upon whom service of summons may be had before it could do business in the State.

The banking corporation was organized under the provisions of an act of Congress of the United States, approved July 17, 1916, for the purpose of lending money upon mortgage securities in the States of Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas, with its domicile or its principal place of business in the city of St. Louis, Missouri.

The act authorizing the creation or organization of the corporation provides, in paragraph 6 of § 4, that such banking corporations, when organized, may "sue or be sued, complain, interplead and defend in any court of law or equity as fully as natural persons.''

(1). The first contention of petitioners in support of their request for a writ of prohibition is that the Federal Land Bank of St. Louis cannot be sued anywhere except in a court of competent jurisdiction within the territorial limits of its domicile in St. Louis, Missouri. This contention is without merit, as the act of Congress authorizing the creation of said banking corporation provides in the plainest language that it may be sued in any court of law or equity as a natural person may be. This section can have no other meaning except that the corporation may be sued wherever service can be obtained upon it, actually or constructively. However, petitioner argues that the constructive service in...