Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Miles
| Decision Date | 01 July 1939 |
| Parties | ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. MILES et al. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appeal from Chancery Court, Shelby County; L. D. Bejach, Chancellor.
Suit by the Illinois Central Railroad Company against Mrs. Jessie Miles, administratrix, and others to enjoin defendants from prosecuting or aiding and abetting in the prosecution of an action brought in Missouri for the death of the named defendant's husband who was killed in Tennessee, wherein an injunction was granted as prayed. From a decree overruling the demurrer to the original and amended bill, defendants appeal.
Decree modified and demurrer overruled with leave to defendants to rely upon the same in their answer, and injunction continued until the hearing in trial court.
W. G Cavett and H. S. Buchanan, both of Memphis, for appellants.
Evans Evans & Creson, of Memphis, for appellee.
From a decree overruling the demurrer to the original and amended bill the chancellor permitted an appeal.
The original bill was filed by the Illinois Central Railroad Company, a common carrier with lines traversing several States and having an office, depot, yards, etc., at Memphis to enjoin a suit brought by Mrs. Jessie Miles, administratrix of the estate of her husband, Paul H. Miles, in a circuit court at Saint Louis, Missouri. It appeared from the allegations of the bill that the deceased was accidently killed at Memphis while in the service of the complainant Railroad Company. That he was a resident of Tennessee and that his wife qualified as administratrix in the probate court at Memphis. It was averred that the complainant's lines did not enter the State of Missouri, "that all the agents and servants of complainant who reside in Saint Louis, Missouri, are engaged in interstate commerce, and that complainant does no business into or out of Saint Louis, or into or out of the State of Missouri, except interstate commerce." It was further alleged that a defense of the suit brought by the administratrix as aforesaid would necessitate the transportation of many witnesses from Memphis to Saint Louis, that numbers of these witnesses were employees of complainant Railroad Company, that it could not compel the attendance of necessary witnesses at a trial in Saint Louis, and that the transportation of its employees to testify at Saint Louis would disrupt its service, and that a trial of this case at Saint Louis would put the complainant to great inconvenience and expense and would be an undue burden on interstate commerce.
An injunction was issued on this bill as prayed and served on the defendant administratrix. She seems to have ignored the bill, making no appearance thereto in the chancery court at Memphis. Shortly thereafter, however, she dismissed her suit at Saint Louis, resigned her appointment as administratrix by the probate court of Shelby County, and executed a power of attorney, under which another administrator was appointed for her husband's estate by a probate court in Saint Louis. The Missouri administrator thereupon brought suit in a circuit court at Saint Louis upon the same cause of action.
Thereupon the complainant Railroad Company filed an amended and supplemental bill, referring to and adopting the allegations of the original bill, stating things done in the matter since the filing of the original bill, as outlined above, and making two daughters of the deceased parties defendant. It appeared from an exhibit to the bill that the Missouri administrator had named these two daughters, as well as the widow, as beneficiaries of the suit there. The prayer of the bill, to cut it short and state the substance, was for an injunction against the wife and daughters of the deceased to restrain them from aiding and abetting in the prosecution of the suit at Saint Louis brought by the Missouri administrator. An injunction was granted as prayed.
To the bill and supplemental bill the defendants first interposed a plea in abatement. The chancellor held this plea insufficient, to which action defendants excepted. Defendants then interposed a demurrer, which the chancellor overruled as heretofore stated. The plea in abatement and the demurrer are quite similar in their contents. The points thus made will be discussed separately hereafter. It is insisted for complainant that the plea in abatement was really a demurrer, and having been overruled, the chancellor improperly considered a second demurrer based upon the same grounds. We think, however, that the defendants, intended to challenge the jurisdiction of the court below to entertain the bill as well as to challenge the equity and merit of the bill. Objections of each character, in this particular case, no doubt might have been made by demurrer. Nevertheless the defendants, were entitled to challenge the jurisdiction by plea in abatement and to challenge the equity of the bill by demurrer. We think that the defendants were not precluded from filing both a plea in abatement and a demurrer by the circumstance that the matters relied on by them went both to the jurisdiction of the court and to the merits of the bill. The chancellor, having overruled the objection to his jurisdiction, was not precluded from considering the same matter as a defense to the merits.
The bill herein was fashioned after that filed in Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Ragan, 172 Tenn. 593, 113 S.W.2d 743. In that case this court approved the decree of the chancellor granting an injunction in favor of that Railroad Company against the maintenance of a suit by its employee Ragan at Saint Louis based upon an accident that happened at Nashville. It appeared that Ragan lived in Nashville and that it would put the Railroad to great inconvenience and expense and impair its service to transport witnesses, all of whom lived in Nashville, to Saint Louis to try the case. This court Justified the injunction granted on the ground that it was an undue burden on interstate commerce and the conclusion reached was based on Davis v. Farmers' Co-operative Co., 262 U.S. 312, 43 S.Ct. 556, 67 L.Ed. 996; Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co. v. Wells, 265 U.S. 101, 44 S.Ct. 469, 68 L.Ed. 928, and Michigan Central R. Co. v. Mix, 278 U.S. 492, 49 S.Ct. 207, 73 L.Ed. 470.
The case before us differs from Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Ragan in this particular. The Missouri action there, as well as the Missouri action here, was brought under the Federal Employers' Liability, Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq. In this case, however, § 56 of 45 U.S.C.A., providing for the venue for actions brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, is especially relied on. That section provides:
"Under this chapter an action may be brought in a district court of the United States, in the district of the residence of the defendant, or in which the cause of action arose, or in which the defendant shall be doing business at the time of commencing such action."
Although an elaborate demurrer was filed in Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Ragan, there was no reference to § 56 either in brief or argument. The case was before this court on appeal from a decree overruling a demurrer and was decided here as though the complainant Railroad Company was not doing business in Missouri when the action was commenced. Such being the plight of the record, the decision was supported by the authorities cited.
As the present case is presented, we are left in doubt as to whether the complainant here is doing business in Missouri within the contemplation of the Federal Employers' Liability Act.
In the case of Davis v. Farmers' Cooperative Co., supra, a suit was brought in Minnesota against a carrier whose lines did not reach that State. The carrier, however, had an agent in Minnesota, service upon whom was good as to the carrier under Minnesota law. It appeared that the carrier would be put to great inconvenience and expense by defending a suit in that State, and the maintenance of such a suit in Minnesota was held to be an undue burden on interstate commerce, and the courts of Minnesota without authority to entertain same. Among other things, the Supreme Court said [262 U.S. 312, 43 S.Ct. 558, 67 L.Ed. 996]:
"But orderly effective administration of justice clearly does not require that a foreign carrier shall submit to a suit in a state in which the cause of action did not arise, in which the transaction giving rise to it was not entered upon, in which the carrier neither owns nor operates a railroad, and in which the plaintiff does not reside."
In Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Wells, supra, an effort was made to maintain a suit against an interstate carrier, without an agent in the particular State, by the seizure under garnishment of certain property of that carrier. The courts of this State were held to be without jurisdiction for reasons similar to those which defeated jurisdiction in the Davis case.
The Davis case was not brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act but in Michigan Central R. Co. v. Mix, supra the suit was under that statute. It was a suit by the widow and administratrix of an employee of the Michigan Central R. Co., whose death resulted from an accident in Michigan where he at that time lived. The widow removed to Saint Louis after her...
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