Pantoja v. Pioneer Marine Carriers Corp., Civ. No. 309-63.

• Decision Date: 01 December 1964
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 309-63.
• Citation: 235 F. Supp. 724
• Parties: Luis Garcia PANTOJA, Plaintiff, v. PIONEER MARINE CARRIERS CORP., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

235 F. Supp. 724

Luis Garcia PANTOJA, Plaintiff, v. PIONEER MARINE CARRIERS CORP., Defendant.

Civ. No. 309-63.

United States District Court D. Puerto Rico.

December 1, 1964.

Nachman & Feldstein, San Juan, P. R., for plaintiff.

Hartzell, Fernández & Novas, San Juan, P. R., for defendant.

RUIZ-NAZARIO, Chief Judge.

This action is now before me on defendant's Motion to Quash Summons. Several objections are urged to the validity of the service of summons, which was effected under the substituted service statute of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 32 L.P.R.A. App. Rule 4.7(b).¹

Objections identical to those raised in paragraphs 2 and 8 of the motion were disposed of by this Court, adversely to defendant's present contention, in Rafael Arne Martínez v. M. A. Karageorgis, Civil No. 123-63. (See order therein of September 23, 1963 denying the petition for rehearing). Upon rereading the aforesaid order, I find the reasons there stated as cogent and persuasive as I did when the similar motion in that case was denied, and therefore I must deny, on the same grounds, the present motion insofar as it is based on (a) the failure to allege transportation of passengers and (b) the want of a record in this Court of the designation of Miss Sunchita Súarez as the person to receive writs for the Department of State.

However, it is further alleged that the amendment to the statute applying it to vessels carrying freight, although enacted in January, 1961, did not take effect until July 31, 1961, and that as the accident occurred on June 22, 1961, the statute as amended would be given a retroactive application.

Defendant cites Summers v. Skibs A/S Myken, D.C., 184 F.Supp. 745, and Summers v. Skibs A/S Myken, D.C., 191 F. Supp. 929, as decisive of the question of retroactivity now before me. Those cases cannot control the present situation, however, because they were bottomed on the proposition that the Pennsylvania statute under consideration used the word shall, which clearly connotes prospective operation. On the other hand our statute reads, "Where the person to be served is engaged in the transportation of passengers or freight * * *," and does not import an action in future time. In Bluff Creek Oil Company v. Green, (1958) 5th Cir., 257 F.2d 83, the Illinois statute being construed provided, "Any person, whether or not a citizen or resident of this State, who in person or through an agent does any of the acts hereinafter enumerated, thereby submits said person, * * * to the jurisdiction of the courts etc." (Emphasis supplied).

In the case at bar, plaintiff had since 22 June 1961, an existing, substantive right, and the defendant had an existing, substantive...