Macario v. Alaska Gastineau Min. Co.

• Decision Date: 19 May 1917
• Docket Number: 13886.
• Citation: 165 P. 73,96 Wash. 458
• Parties: MACARIO v. ALASKA GASTINEAU MINING CO. et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

165 P. 73

96 Wash. 458

MACARIO v. ALASKA GASTINEAU MINING CO. et al.

No. 13886.

Supreme Court of Washington

May 19, 1917

Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, Ferry County; Mitchell Gilliam and Kenneth Mackintosh, Judges.

Action by James Macario against the Alaska Gastineau Mining Company and another. From an adverse order and judgment, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Holcomb J., dissenting.

John F Miller, John T. Casey, and R. J. Boryer, all of Seattle, for appellant.

R. S Pierce and Lyons & Orton, all of Seattle, for respondents.

PARKER J.

The plaintiff, Macario, commenced this action in the superior court for King county seeking recovery of damages for personal injuries against the defendants' mining company and O'Neill, which personal injuries he claims to have suffered as the result of the negligence of the defendants while he was employed by the mining company under the direction of O'Neill, its foreman, in its mining operations in Alaska.

The mining company is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the state of New York and is engaged in mining operations in Alaska, being duly authorized to do business therein under the laws of that territory. It has never complied with our statute relating to the doing of business in this state by foreign corporations. It claims that it never did business in this state of the nature that called for any such compliance on its part, and also that it never did business in this state of such nature that it can lawfully be subjected to the process of our courts. The plaintiff sought to have the superior court for King county acquire jurisdiction over the mining company in this action by service of summons upon Robert Munro as its agent in Seattle. The mining company appeared specially and moved to quash the service of the summons upon the ground that it was not doing business in this state of such nature as to enable our courts to acquire jurisdiction over it in this case. Trial before the court upon the issue of whether it was so doing business in this state resulted in findings and an order quashing the service of summons upon Munro as the company's agent and holding the service for naught. Defendant O'Neill was personally served with summons in Seattle, and the case proceeded to trial upon the merits as against him before the court sitting with a jury, when at the close of the evidence introduced in the plaintiff's behalf counsel for defendant O'Neill moved for a dismissal of the action upon the ground that the evidence introduced was insufficient to support any recovery as against him. This motion was by the court granted, and the jury discharged. The plaintiff has appealed from the order of the court quashing the service of summons upon Munro as agent of the mining company, and also from the judgment of dismissal in favor of defendant O'Neill.

Respondent mining company, while organized under the laws of the state of New York and having its head office in that state, is principally engaged in somewhat extensive mining operations in Alaska. Since the year 1912 Robert Munro, a resident of Seattle, has been its employé upon a regular salary. His title as such employé is 'supply and forwarding agent.' The mining company maintains an office in Seattle, which has been at all times since 1912 under Munro's charge with two other salaried employés under him. The duty of Munro has been to forward from Seattle supplies to the mining company at its place of operation in Alaska. These supplies would be purchased at different points in the states, shipped by rail to Seattle, some of them also being purchased in Seattle, when Munro, as representative of the mining company there, would attend to their transfer and shipment by boat to the mining company in Alaska. Munro apparently had considerable to do with the purchase of these supplies, especially the portion thereof purchased in Seattle. He had authority to make contracts of purchase at least to some extent, though apparently when purchases in any considerable sum were made he was required to submit the same to officers of the company either in New York or Alaska for approval before the final consummation of such purchases. There were large quantities of supplies thus forwarded from Seattle by Munro to the mining company in Alaska. This constituted the principal work of Munro for the mining company in this state. There were, however, other duties occasionally performed by him for the mining company, such as making hotel and transportation reservations for officers and employés of the company passing through Seattle on their way to and from Alaska. He also on two or three occasions by special direction from the Alaska office made arrangements for the care of injured workmen sent by the company to Seattle from Alaska for treatment, and on one occasion signed and verified an answer for the company in an action pending against it in the United States District court sitting at Seattle, and on another occasion by special direction from the Alaska office made arrangement with one of its injured workmen who was then in Seattle for a compromise of the workman's claim against the mining company. The foregoing summary, we think, constitutes a fair statement of all the business the mining company ever did in this state, and is as favorable to appellant's contentions as the record will admit of.

It was conceded that Munro was the agent of the mining company for the purpose of doing all of the things above noticed, and that, if the doing of these things at Seattle constituted the doing of business in this state by the mining company to the extent that it thereby became subject to the process of the superior court for King county in this action, then the service of the summons upon Munro was an effective service upon the mining company in so far as the question of his agency alone is concerned. So the question here is: Was the mining company doing business in this state to the extent that it became subject to the process of our courts in this action?

Conceding for argument's sake, speaking generally, that this cause of action is transitory, being one which appellant may sue the mining company to recover upon in any court within whose jurisdiction he can find the mining company and procure lawful service of process upon it, let us have in mind that this cause of action arose, if at all, in Alaska, where the mining company is doing its principal business. It may be that, if a cause of action should arise in this state against the mining company growing directly out of an authorized agency act of Munro, the mining company could be sued thereon in the courts of this state, though its doing business in this state be limited to the particular act creating such cause of action, and though it should be held not to be engaged in business generally in this state. We think an examination of the authorities will show that the place of the arising of the cause of action has been generally regarded as of controlling force by the courts in determining the question of a defendant foreign corporation being subject to the process of the court wherein recovery is sought whenever the question of such foreign corporation doing business generally in the state in which it is sought to be sued is one of doubt. 19 Cyc. 1338, 1339.

Our problem then is, as we view it: Was the mining company doing business in this state to that extent which subjected it to the process of our courts as to any and all transitory causes of action maintainable against it? Our inquiry must necessarily take this broad scope, since every possible element of the cause of action here involved arose in Alaska and was wholly unconnected with any act or business transaction of the mining company in this state. So the jurisdiction of the superior court for King county is not aided in the least by the place of the arising of the cause of action as such jurisdiction would be aided had the cause of action arisen in this state.

The opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in Green v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 205 U.S. 530, 27 S.Ct. 595, 51 L.Ed. 916, we think, is decisive of this question. That was an action in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to recover damages for personal injuries occurring in Colorado, which were claimed to have resulted from the negligence of the railway company, an Iowa corporation. The railway company did not operate any railway lines in Pennsylvania, though it did some business there in the way of entering into contracts for transportation of persons and property over its lines west of Chicago, which business, as we view it, bore at least as intimate relation to the general business of the railway company as the business done by Munro in Seattle bore to the general business of respondent mining company. In holding that such business transacted in Pennsylvania by the railway company's agent did not constitute the doing of business by that company in Pennsylvania to the extent of subjecting it to be sued in Pennsylvania upon a cause of action for personal injury occurring in Colorado, Justice Moody, speaking for the court, said:

'The eastern point of the defendant's line of railroad was at Chicago, whence its tracks extended westward. The business for which it was incorporated was the carriage of freight and passengers, and the construction, maintenance and operation of a railroad for that purpose. As incidental and collateral to that business it was proper, and, according to the business methods generally pursued, probably essential, that freight and passenger traffic should be solicited in other parts of the country than those through which the defendant's tracks ran. For the purpose of conducting

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