Ferkel v. Columbia Clay Works

• Decision Date: 11 April 1911
• Docket Number: 1,754.,1,749
• Citation: 192 F. 119
• Parties: FERKEL v. COLUMBIA CLAY WORKS. COLUMBIA CLAY WORKS v. FERKEL.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

192 F. 119

FERKEL v. COLUMBIA CLAY WORKS.

COLUMBIA CLAY WORKS v. FERKEL.

Nos. 1,749, 1,754.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

April 11, 1911

Rehearing Denied July 27, 1911.

Charles P. Wise, David E. Keefe, William E. Wheeler, Gustavus A Buder, and Oscar E. Buder, for plaintiff in error.

Edward C. Kramer, Rudolph J. Kramer, Bruce A. Campbell, and Curt H G. Heinfelden, for defendant in error.

Before GROSSCUP and BAKER, Circuit Judges, and HUMPHREY, District judge.

HUMPHREY District Judge.

The controversy in these cases grows out of an action of forcible entry and detainer brought by the Clay Works, a Missouri corporation, against Ferkel, a citizen of the Eastern district of Illinois, for the possession of certain premises in Illinois. The corporation claims right of possession by various assignments of a 99-year lease executed by Ferkel and others, and after a jury trial the court below gave a conditional judgment in favor of the Clay Works. Writs of error were prosecuted by both parties; Ferkel contending that the Clay Works had not shown the statutory requirements necessary to confer jurisdiction, and the Clay Works contending that the condition fixed by the court in rendering judgment and ordering restitution of the premises was a modification which the court had no power to impose. The writs of error will be considered together.

It is objected that the plaintiff below was a foreign corporation which had not complied with the laws of Illinois respecting the doing of business in this state. The only contract however, in the nature of doing business in this state, that is involved, is the lease, and we do not think that that contract is within the meaning of the law. Certainly Illinois by that statute did not intend to make void any leases or other grants of land that a foreign corporation might acquire, irrespective of whether such corporation did business or not. It was the business contracts, and not the property contracts, that the law had in mind. This objection is not good.

The only other question we deem it important to consider is that raised by the writ of error in No. 1,749, that the verdict awarded the entire premises to the Clay Works, and in the face of this the court gave judgment and writ of restitution for only a portion thereof. Upon argument mention was made by counsel of a colloquy between court and counsel at the time of the hearing of a motion for a...