Knowles v. the Gaslight and Coke Company

• Decision Date: 01 October 1873
• Citation: 19 Wall. 58,22 L.Ed. 70,86 U.S. 58
• Parties: KNOWLES v. THE GASLIGHT AND COKE COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

86 U.S. 58

22 L.Ed. 70

19 Wall. 58

KNOWLES v. THE GASLIGHT AND COKE COMPANY.

October Term, 1873

ERROR to the Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota.

The Logansport Gaslight and Coke Company brought an action in the court below, against Alfred Knowles, on a judgment recovered by it against the said Knowles and one Thomas Harvey, in the Circuit Court for Cass County, Indiana. The defence to the action now brought was that that court did not have jurisdiction of the person of the defendant. The record of the former judgment was produced on the trial and was somewhat anomalous. Three defendants were sued in the Cass County Court—a certain J. W. Bain, Knowles, and Harvey—none of whom resided in Indiana. Bain was served with process in New York, and after a long struggle to get the proceedings dismissed as to himself, removed the cause into the Circuit Court of the United States, under the act of 1866,¹ and obtained a judgment in his favor. The cause was then remanded to the Cass County Court, and judgment by default was rendered against Knowles and Harvey. In some respects the proceedings seemed to have been conducted as a suit on attachment, the property of the defendants (who resided in Minnesota) being attached, and other creditors being allowed to come in to participate in the proceeds. Nevertheless the record of the proceedings contained, amongst other things, the copy of a summons in the case, issued to the sheriff of Cass County, against all the defendants, and a return thereto in the following words:

'I do hereby certify that I served the within writ, on the 14th day of September, 1865, upon Alfred Knowles and Thomas Harvey, personally, by reading the same to them. And I further certify that J. W. Bain cannot be found in my bailiwick.'- The return was signed by the sheriff's deputy. This was all that appeared in the record on the subject of service of process on Knowles and Harvey, or in reference to their appearance or non-appearance to the action. The defendant, on the trial of the present action, contended that the return of the sheriff was insufficient to charge him personally in the former action, inasmuch as it did not show that service had been made in the proper county, or where it was made; and, being overruled on this point, he offered to prove by himself and Harvey that neither of them had in fact been served with process, and that the return was false; the purpose of this proof being to show that the Cass County Court, which rendered the judgment on which this action was brought, never had jurisdiction of the person of either. The court below (the case of Thompson v. Whitman,² in this court, not having then been adjudged) excluded the testimony, on the ground that the record could not be contradicted in a collateral proceeding.

The case was brought here on a bill of exceptions.

Mr. R. H. Bigelow, for the plaintiff, relied——

As to the first point, on Allen v. Blunt,³ ruled in the circuit by the late Mr. Justice Nelson; and,

As to the second, on Christmas v. Russell,⁴ and Cheever v. Wilson,⁵ adjudged in this court.

Mr. F. R. E. Cornell, contra.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court.

Upon the first point, that the return was insufficient, the plaintiff in error relies on a decision of Mr. Justice Nelson at the circuit, in the case of Allen v. Blunt, in which it is supposed to have been held that a return of service by the United States marshal, without showing that the service was made in his district, was insufficient to give the court jurisdiction of the...