Payne v. Knapp
| Decision Date | 01 April 1924 |
| Docket Number | No. 34268.,34268. |
| Citation | 197 Iowa 737,198 N.W. 62 |
| Parties | PAYNE, AGENT, ET AL. v. KNAPP. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Appanoose County; D. M. Anderson, Judge.
Action in equity to enjoin the defendant from prosecuting in a Missouri court a suit for a personal injury upon a cause of action accruing in Iowa. From a decree denying the relief asked, the plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.
Superseding former opinion in 195 N. W. 1.Hughes, Taylor & O'Brien, of Des Moines, and Wilson & Smith, of Centerville, for appellants.
Howell, Elgin & Howell, of Centerville, and Hubbell Bros., of Trenton, Mo., for appellee.
It is alleged in the petition that the defendant, Knapp, a resident and citizen of Appanoose county, Iowa, brought suit in Grundy county, Mo., against the plaintiffs herein to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been received by him in Iowa, while in the employ of the Director General of Railways operating the lines of the plaintiff, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. Such proceeding is alleged to be in violation of chapter 293 of the Acts of the Thirty-Seventh General Assembly; to be oppressive and brought for the purpose of obtaining an unfair advantage over the defendants therein, the plaintiffs herein. The prayer is for an injunction restraining the maintenance of such proceedings in Grundy county, Mo., or any other action growing out of the matters set up in that action elsewhere outside the state of Iowa.
The answer admits the commencement and pendency of the action in the state of Missouri to recover for any injury alleged to have been received by the defendant herein in Iowa while in the employ of the Director General and on the railway of the plaintiff company.
Upon a trial it appeared, without dispute, that at the time of his alleged injury the defendant herein was, and had continued to be, a resident and citizen of Appanoose county, Iowa; that on January 13, 1919, while in the employ of the Director General of Railways, and on the line of the plaintiff company, he received an injury in the course of his employment, and thereafter on December 23, 1920, by his attorneys, Hubbell Bros., of Trenton, Mo., he brought an action in Grundy county, Mo., to recover therefor. It was alleged in the petition filed in the Missouri court that the defendants therein were engaged in interstate commerce, and the plaintiff therein was at the time of his injury employed and engaged by the defendants in interstate commerce.
It is unnecessary to go further into the facts shown on the trial. The court below denied the relief asked, and the plaintiff prosecutes this appeal.
Chapter 293 of the Acts of the Thirty-Seventh General Assembly provides, in substance, that it shall be unlawful for any person with the intent, or for the purpose of instituting suit outside of this state, to solicit the business of collecting any claim for damages for personal injuries sustained within this state, or in any way to promote the prosecution of a suit brought outside this state for such damages, where such right of action rests in a resident of this state, and is against a person, copartnership, or corporation subject to personal service within this state. It was held in Wabash Railway Co. v. Peterson, 187 Iowa, 1331, 175 N. W. 523, that under this statute injunction would lie to restrain the prosecution in a foreign state of an action arising in this state between a resident of the state and one suable in this state, where it appeared the defendant therein would be put to a substantial and needless disadvantage in making defense by deposition or incurring nonrecoverable expense of transporting witnesses to the foreign state. In the case of Spoo's Estate, 191 Iowa, 1134, 183 N. W. 580, an administrator appointed in this state was required to dismiss an action instituted by him in the court of a foreign state against a defendant subject to personal service in this state to recover for an injury inflicted in this state upon the deceased. It was also held that the federal Employers' Laibility Act, as amended (U. S. Comp. St. §§ 8657-8665), providing that actions under the act might be brought in a proper court of the United States in the district of the residence of the defendant, or in which the cause of action arose, or in which the defendant should be doing business at the time of commencement of such action, and that jurisdiction of the courts of the United States should be concurrent with that of the courts of the several states, did not limit or restrict the power or jurisdiction of the state court to exercise such authority and control over an administrator appointed by it as was done in that case, where it is expressly or tacitly admitted that the probate court has authority to direct the course of litigation on the part of an administrator.
[1] In the case of Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Schendel, 292 Fed. 326, decided by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, since the trial of this cause in the court below, it was held that the statute of the state, above referred to, as heretofore construed by this court was unconstitutional, in that it deprived one claiming a right to recover for a personal injury under the federal Employers' Liability Act of the right given by that act to sue in the federal court in any district where the defendant was doing business. It was said:
In that case, it is true, the action for recovery of the damages alleged to have been sustained was commenced in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, and the action of the state court complained of was an injunction restraining the witnesses from testifying in any case brought to recover such damages in any court, save the state court of Linn county, Iowa, or the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. But, in view of the holding that the act of Congress confers a right that cannot be taken away by state legislation upon a claimant to bring an action under the federal Employers' Liability Act in any federal court designated by the act, and also gives concurrent jurisdiction to any state court of competent jurisdiction, it must follow that the latter right is also one that the state cannot by legislation impair. In other words, since the act confers concurrent jurisdiction of actions brought under it upon certain designated federal courts, and also upon certain state courts of competent jurisdiction, the...
To continue reading
Request your trial