Missouri Pac. Ry. Co. v. Harden

• Decision Date: 25 May 1925
• Docket Number: 25217
• Citation: 158 La. 889,105 So. 2
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: MISSOURI PAC. RY. CO. v. HARDEN

105 So. 2

158 La. 889

MISSOURI PAC. RY. CO. v. HARDEN

No. 25217

Supreme Court of Louisiana

May 25, 1925

Rehearing Denied June 22, 1925

Appeal from Tenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Concordia; N M. Calhoun, Judge.

Suit for injunction by the Missouri Pacific Railway Company against Oskar Harden. Decree for defendant, and plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Hudson Potts, Bernstein & Sholars, of Monroe, for appellant.

Albin Provosty, of New Roads, and Engle & Laub, of Natchez, Miss., for appellee.

LAND J. O'NIELL, C. J.

OPINION

LAND, J.

The Missouri Pacific Railway Company is a Missouri corporation, with its domicile and principal offices located at the city of St. Louis.

Said company owns and operates a line of railroad through the town of Vidalia, Concordia parish, in this state, and sends its cars by transfer across the Mississippi river, and over the lines of the Natchez & Southern Railway Company into the state of Mississippi.

Defendant is a resident of Tensas parish, La. On or about July 30, 1921, at or near the town of Sycamore in Concordia parish, defendant was injured while a passenger on a train of plaintiff railway company, and on December 23, 1921, instituted suit against said company in the chancery court of Adams county, Miss., seizing, through garnishment process, certain interline accounts alleged to be due by the Mississippi railroads made garnishees, as well as certain interline box cars belonging to plaintiff railway company, and in the possession of the railroads so garnisheed.

Plaintiff seeks in this proceeding to restrain defendant from further prosecution of the suit brought by him in the chancery court of Mississippi.

Plaintiff's suit was instituted originally in the district court of Tensas parish. Exceptions to the jurisdiction ratione personae and ratione materiae, as well as of no cause or right of action, were filed and overruled. A temporary writ of injunction was issued, and, after the filing of the answer, the case was transferred, by consent of the attorneys, to the district court of Concordia parish, to be tried and disposed of on the merits.

The temporary writ of injunction was dissolved, with damages in favor of defendant, and plaintiff, railway company, has appealed.

1. It is well settled that, as a court of equity acts in personam, it has the power to restrain its own citizens from prosecuting suits in the courts of other states and foreign jurisdictions in proper cases. Story, Eq. Juris. (13th Ed.) vol. 2, §§ 899, 900; Pomeroy Eq. Remedies, vol. 6, § 670; Pomeroy (3d Ed.) vol. 4, § 1361; American Express Co. v. Fox, 135 Tenn. 489, 187 S.W. 1117, Ann. Cas. 1918B, 1148; 59 Am. St. Rep. 879 et seq; 32 C. J. §§ 136, 137.

As the district court of Tensas parish is the court of the domicile of the defendant, it has jurisdiction over his person. The exception to the jurisdiction was therefore properly overruled.

2. Plaintiff, railway company, has alleged the following grounds for the issuance of the injunction in this case: That the practice and procedure in the state of Mississippi, in the trial of personal injury cases, is different from that of the state of Louisiana; that juries in the former state are notoriously prejudiced as against defendants and the quantum of damages allowed is usually large and excessive; that, as plaintiff, railway company, has no lines or employees in the state of Mississippi, it does not maintain a legal department in that state, and will be compelled at a great expense to employ special counsel residing in that jurisdiction; that therefore the institution of this action by defendant in the chancery court of Adams county is, and was intended as, a fraud upon, and evasion of, the jurisdiction of the courts of this state, and was brought to annoy and harass petitioner, and to subject it to great and unnecessary expense incident to the trial, with the evident purpose of compelling by compromise a settlement of defendant's claim for damages, of obtaining a different or other form of remedy and relief than is afforded under the laws of this state, of securing greater compensation as damages than allowable under the laws of this state, and of depriving petitioner of the advantages enjoyed by it under the laws of the state of Louisiana in defending the suit.

While the decisions of the courts are not in accord as to the circumstances which will justify the issuance of an injunction in this class of cases, and while it is not possible to state a fixed rule covering all cases in which the relief will be granted, it appears, from the adjudged cases on the subject, that injunctions have been granted against suits in the courts of another state to prevent vexatious harassment, oppression, or fraud, unconscionable or inequitable advantage, irreparable injury, evasion of domiciliary laws, etc. However, each case must be determined by its own facts. 32 C. J. § 137; 14 R. C. L. 414.

Accepting as true the allegations of plaintiff's petition, as a whole, we concur with the trial judge in his finding that a cause of action is disclosed, and approve the overruling of the exception of no cause or right of action in this case.

3. However, the facts of the case, as they appear upon the trial of the merits, present a different legal aspect from the facts as alleged. If defendant had sued plaintiff, railway company, in the district court of Concordia parish, in this state, the trial would have been held at Vidalia in said parish, a little over a mile distant from the court of chancery held in Natchez, and in which defendant instituted suitagainst said company. Defendant was injured at Sycamore, in Concordia parish, in the latter part of July, 1921, and, for over two years before the date of the accident had resided with his family at Allen, in the state of Mississippi.

Defendant was still a resident of that state when he employed his attorneys, Brunini & Hirsch at Vicksburg, who later associated with them the law firm of Engle & Laub at Natchez in the bringing of this suit. Defendant did not become a resident of Waterproof, Tensas parish, La., until October 25, 1921, where he was residing on December 23, 1925, when he instituted his suit in the chancery court of Adams county, Miss.

The testimony of defendant shows that he gave no instructions to his attorneys as to the forum where the suit should be brought, and that he was unaware of the motives that actuated his attorneys in instituting the suit in the chancery court of Mississippi.

The testimony of Charles F. Engle, of the law firm of Engle & Laub, is to the effect that the suit was brought in the chancery court of Mississippi because of the decision of the Supreme Court of that state in July, 1921, sustaining the jurisdiction of chancery courts where the accounts of nonresident railroad companies were garnisheed, or the property of such companies had been attached in the state. Davis, Director General, v. Dantzler Lumber Co., 126 Miss. 812, 89 So. 148; Dantzler Lumber Co. v. Texas & P. R. Co., 119 Miss. 328, 80 So. 770, 4 A. L. R. 1669.

The witness further states that --

"This suit was not brought to annoy, harass, or put extra expense upon the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, but because the expense of the litigation there is not as high as in Louisiana -- the court furnishes a stenographer, paid for by the state; and because for the further reason we could handle the case ourselves, in Mississippi, while, if we brought it in Louisiana, we would probably have to associate a local attorney, as to matters of procedure, and also as to the question of liability."

The witness also explained that there were no trials by jury in the chancery courts of Mississippi, and that, while the law as to...