Montgomery v. Minneapolis Fire Dept. Relief Ass'n

• Decision Date: 23 June 1944
• Docket Number: No. 33793.,33793.
• Citation: 15 N.W.2d 122,218 Minn. 27
• Parties: MONTGOMERY v. MINNEAPOLIS FIRE DEPT. RELIEF ASS'N.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

15 N.W.2d 122

218 Minn. 27

MONTGOMERY v. MINNEAPOLIS FIRE DEPT. RELIEF ASS'N.

No. 33793.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 23, 1944.

Appeal from District Court, Hennepin County; Paul S. Carroll, Judge.

Suit by Walter H. Montgomery against the Minneapolis Fire Department Relief Association for a declaratory judgment as to plaintiff's right to receive a pension. Judgment in favor of plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

Judgment affirmed.

M. J. Timmons, of Minneapolis, for appellant.

Thomas Vennum and Norman L. Newhall, Jr., both of Minneapolis, for respondent.

JULIUS J. OLSON, Justice.

This was a suit under our Declaratory Judgments Act. Plaintiff prevailed, and defendant appeals from the resulting judgment.

The facts are shown by the pleadings and may be thus summarized:

From August 4, 1912, until March 1, 1917, plaintiff was regularly employed as one of the firemen of the Minneapolis Fire Department. He severed his connection with it on March 1, 1917, and shortly thereafter, on May 29, entered army service in World War I, from which he was honorably discharged April 21, 1919. For a period of some nine years after his discharge he was engaged in private employment. From January 22, 1930, and until this suit was brought on August 13, 1943, he was constantly employed by the fire department as a regular fireman. During his entire employment there, both before and after his army service, he was a regular dues-paying member in good standing of defendant association. He is now past 53 years of age. If the time of his army service is added to his actual service time with the Minneapolis Fire Department he is entitled to receive a pension.

Defendant's assignments of error assert:

"The court erred [1] in assuming jurisdiction [of the cause] and [2] in granting the motion of plaintiff for judgment on the pleadings.

"The order, and judgment based thereon, is contrary to law and is a nullity."

If the court's assumption and exercise of jurisdiction are sustained, there can be no doubt that the granting of the motion for judgment on the pleadings is unassailable, since there is no conflict respecting the recited facts. The second paragraph is but a conclusion and obviously falls of its own weight if the court had jurisdiction of the parties and of the subject matter involved in the litigation.

1. Jurisdiction of the parties clearly appears, since plaintiff himself invoked the aid of the court and the defendant appeared generally by answering the complaint, alleging by way of avoidance:

"* * * Defendant contends that plaintiff does not qualify for a pension under the statutes and provisions quoted in the complaint herein and that the dispute is not such as the court can take cognizance of under the provisions of the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act and that said dispute as yet involves no actual, genuine, live controversy the decision of which can definitely affect legal relations of the parties as they exist at the present time."

"A voluntary general appearance by a defendant is equivalent to a personal service of the summons upon him." 1 Dunnell, Dig. & Supp. § 476, and cases in note 12; Id. § 475, and cases in note 9.

2. This, then, leaves for consideration and determination as the only remaining question on the matter of jurisdiction whether the subject matter of the suit is a justiciable one and therefore within

the competence of the district court to hear and determine. Of course there is no doubt that our district court is one of general jurisdiction, having, under Minn. Const. art. 6, § 5, "jurisdiction in all civil cases, both in law and equity, where the amount in controversy exceeds one hundred dollars." Important to bear in mind also is the general purpose of the Declaratory Judgments Act. As pointed out by Professor Borchard, in 18 Minn.L.Rev. 239 et seq.: "The main characteristic of the declaratory judgment, which distinguishes it from other judgments, is the fact that, by the act authorizing it, courts are empowered to adjudicate upon disputed legal rights `whether or not further relief is or could be claimed.'" The judgments to be entered are designed to (p. 240) "declare the existence of rights in doubt or uncertainty, rather than create new rights." The remedy afforded by that act is sometimes, so he points out (p. 243), "mistakenly characterized as if it were an extraordinary remedy, not to be employed where another remedy is available, a conclusion which cannot be too firmly repudiated as in conflict with the statutes and with the history and practice in England and the United States generally." Rather, it is (p. 242) "an alternative remedy" (p. 243), "another established remedy."

3. The Declaratory Judgments Act is found in Minn.St.1941, § 555.01 et seq., Mason St.1940 Supp. § 9455-1 et seq. The first section so far as here material, reads: "Courts of record within their respective jurisdictions shall have power to declare rights, status, and other legal relations whether or not further relief is or could be claimed."

Section 555.02 reads: "Any person * * * whose rights, status, or other legal relations are affected by a statute,...