Knower v. Baldwin

• Decision Date: 27 September 1943
• Docket Number: 35408.
• Citation: 15 So.2d 47,195 Miss. 166
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: KNOWER et al. v. BALDWIN.

15 So.2d 47

195 Miss. 166

KNOWER et al. v. BALDWIN.

No. 35408.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

September 27, 1943

A S. Johnston, Jr., of Biloxi, and Livingston & Livingston of Prentiss, for appellants.

Hall & Hall, of Columbia, for appellee.

ALEXANDER Justice.

Mrs Baldwin brought suit in the Circuit Court of Jefferson Davis County for damages suffered in a collision with an automobile driven by Knower, a traveling salesman for Helbros Watch Company, Inc., a foreign corporation.

The only assignments of error argued relate to the action of the trial court in overruling a plea of the corporation to the jurisdiction, and its denial of the motion by Knower to transfer the cause against him to the Circuit Court of Harrison County.

The argument raises the factual issue as to whether Knower was such agent of the corporation as would render process upon him effective to acquire territorial jurisdiction of the nonresident corporation. Appellee contends that under Code 1930, Section 4167, the nature and extent of Knower's agency is immaterial since process against a foreign corporation "may be served upon any agent of said corporation found within the county where the suit is brought, no matter what character of agent such person may be." In this she falls into the same error which crept into Arnett v. Carol C. & Fred R. Smith, Inc., Miss., 142 So. 478, and which was corrected upon suggestion of error. Id., 165 Miss. 53, 145 So. 638. This section refers, as does Section 4166, only to foreign corporations found doing business in this State. Unless, therefore, the Helbros Watch Company was found doing business in this State it is not here suable. Arnett v. Smith, supra; Lee v. Memphis Publishing Company, Miss., 14 So.2d 351.

We pass therefore to the inquiry whether the corporation was doing business in this State. The testimony leaves no doubt that its only business was conducted through Knower who, as its traveling salesman, solicited orders for watches and transmitted these orders to the corporation for approval. He sold no merchandise. He carried a stock of dummy watches and conducted his solicitation according to his own plans. In this connection, he was aided by suggestion or direction from time to time as to points or prospects to be covered and was subject to the general supervision of the company to whom he was responsible. He was paid by commissions only, and furnished his own automobile which he was driving when the injury occurred. His relationship as a soliciting agent is practically identical with that involved in Saxony Mills v. Wagner, 94 Miss. 233, 47 So. 899, 23 L.R.A.,N.S 834, 136 Am.St.Rep. 575, 19 Ann.Cas. 199. Further authority need not be...