Johnson v. Haley

• Decision Date: 13 October 1959
• Docket Number: No. 41,J,41
• Citation: 98 N.W.2d 555,357 Mich. 411
• Parties: Helen JOHNSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Catherine Ella Rae HALEY, Defendant-Appellee. une Term.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 555

98 N.W.2d 555

357 Mich. 411

Helen JOHNSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Catherine Ella Rae HALEY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 41, June Term.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Oct. 13, 1959.

Albert M. Colman, Detroit, for plaintiff-appellant.

Berris Poindexter & Berris, Detroit, for defendant-appellee.

Before the Entire Bench.

SMITH, Justice.

The validity of a California judgment, rendered against a resident of Michigan, is before us.

Defendant Catherine Haley is, in the words of the pretrial statement, in the 'automobile driveaway business with office in Detroit.' She arranges the delivery of cars from Detroit to distant points. Her legal status with respect to the owner of the car and the driver thereof is controverted. One of the cars being delivered under this arrangement, whatever it may be, was involved in an accident in the city of Oakland, California, causing plaintiff to suffer personal injuries.

Plaintiff filed suit in the Superior Court of Alameda county, California, against defendant Haley, and against the driver of the car, James Caldwell, and the owner, Frank Loney, alleging that Caldwell was acting as Heley's agent and that the accident occurred while he was acting within the course of his agency.

Service of summons was made upon the director of motor vehicles of the State of California, under section 404 of the California Vehicle Code, ¹ with copies, as required by the statute, to defendant in Detroit by registered mail. She appeared specially in the California court, moving to quash service of summons upon the grounds that she was not a resident of California, was not the owner of the car, had never operated any car described in the complaint within the state of California, and that the driver, James Caldwell, was neither her agent nor her servant but was, rather, an independent contractor. In support of these assertions defendant attached her affidavit, describing in detail her arrangements both with the driver of the car, defendant Caldwell, and the owner of the car, defendant Loney, denied control over Caldwell, and submitted a copy of the contract which, she says, she 'arranged' between Caldwell and Loney. The California court thereafter held that defendant Haley's motion to appear specially for the purpose of moving to quash service of summons be granted but, as to the motion itself, held that 'the motion of said defendant Catherine Ella Rae Haley to quash service of summons is denied.' Subsequent thereto, in defendant Haley's words, she 'did not appear and defend and was subjected to judgment by default.'

Suit was then commenced in the circuit court for Wayne county, praying for judgment in Michigan based upon the California judgment, an authenticated copy of which was placed in evidence. Plaintiff prays, in effect, that we give full faith and credit ² to the California judgment.

Defendant, however, contended again in the Wayne circuit, as she had before the California court, that the driver of the car was an independent contractor, that she (Haley) neither owned nor operated the car, and that the State of California had no jurisdiction over her. This argument as to agency was here more successful than in California. The circuit judge entered judgment of no cause for action.

Before us defendant argues that the circuit judge has made his decision upon a question of fact (was or was not driver Caldwell the agent of defendant Haley?) and, decision having been made in defendant's favor, 'fully supported by the evidence,' this court should not disturb.

The difficulties with the argument thus presented are several. In the first place the fact-law dichotomy relied upon, save in the simplest of contexts, is slippery and ambiguous. ³ Whether John Doe is the husband of Mary Roe, rather than Mary's son, or her brother, may be described as an issue of fact in a controversy over identity. But if John has two alleged former wives living, one divorced by mail from Latin America, the other divorced in this country but with questionable service of process, the question whether Mary is the wife of John may be a legal question of enormous complexity. Likewise here, whether driver Caldwell was the agent of defendant Haley presents one of the knottiest legal problems our courts face today, the distinction between agent and independent contractor. In the context here presented it is not merely a question of fact.

Even, however, if the question could reasonably be regarded as one merely of simple fact, we would have made but little progress towards the resolution of the controversy before us. True it is that we are reluctant to disturb on appeal determinations of fact below. But this self-imposed canon of our scope of review does not embody a whole code of justice, answering, willy-nilly, any constitutional or procedural problem presented to us, even if involving (as here, for example) the scope of res judicata or the interpretation of the full faith and credit clause.

The controlling issue may be very simply stated: In how many courts may a party litigate his case? If he loses in, say, Ohio, can he relitigate in Indiana, in Illinois, in Michigan, as his judgment-creditor pursues him across the nation?

Modern courts say not. Due process requires only one day in court, not a series of days. The Restatement of the Conflict of Laws (1948 Supp., § 451) states with accuracy the current law in the following terms:

'(1) Where a defendant appears in an action to object that the court has no jurisdiction over him and the court overrules the objection and judgment is rendered against him, the parties are precluded from collaterally attacking the judgment on the ground that the court has no jurisdiction over the defendant.'

The Restatement of Judgments (§ 9), embracing cognate material, contains the following:

'Where, however, the defendant appears in the action only to object that the court has no jurisdiction over him, that is where he enters a special appearance, the court does not acquire jurisdiction over him because of his appearance (see § 20), except to decide the question so raised. But if the court determines that it has jurisdiction over him, even though that determination is erroneous on the facts (see Illustrations 1 and 2) or on the law (see Illustration 3), the determination is res judicata between the parties. This is an application of the general principle of res judicata, precluding the parties from relitigating a matter determined by a court after a fair opportunity has been afforded to them to litigate the matter (see § 1).

'If the defendant appears in an action for the purpose of objecting that the court has no jurisdiction over him, he thereby submits to the court for his determination the question whether the court has jurisdiction over him. If the court erroneously determines that it has jurisdiction over the defendant, he has ground for reversal in an appellate court, and ground for carrying the case to the Supreme Court of the United States since a judgment rendered against him by a court having no jurisdiction over him deprives him of property without due process of law in violation of the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If, however, he does not avail himself of these remedies, or if the judgment is affirmed, or if the appellate court or the Supreme Court of the United States declines to consider the case, the defendant cannot thereafter successfully contended that the judgment was void, even though in fact the court had no jurisdiction over him. The defendant, having submitted the question of jurisdiction to the...