Stevens v. People's Savings Bank
| Decision Date | 11 March 1919 |
| Docket Number | 32377 |
| Parties | IDA M. STEVENS, Administratrix, Appellee, v. PEOPLES SAVINGS BANK, Appellee, et al., Appellant. IDA M. STEVENS, Administratrix, Appellee, v. FARMERS AND MINERS SAVINGS BANK, Appellee, et al., Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Monroe District Court.--SENECA CORNELL, Judge.
CONTROVERSY over the ownership of certain bank deposits, which were represented by passbooks. The deposits in question were made in his lifetime by Grant Buckner, now deceased. The plaintiff is his administratrix, and as such, claims the amount of the deposits. The controversy involves separate deposits in two banks. The plaintiff brought a separate action against each bank, and in each case joined Marie Buckner as a defendant she being in actual possession of the bank passbooks, and claiming to be the owner thereof and of the deposits represented thereby. By agreement of the parties, the two cases were consolidated and tried together as an action at law, without a jury. Judgment went for the plaintiff, and the defendant appeals.--Reversed and remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
Malcolm & True and N. E. Kendall, for appellant.
McCoy & McCoy and J. C. Mabry, for appellee.
Prior to September, 1916, Grant Buckner had been a resident of Monroe County for 18 years. During that period of time, he had been in the continuous employment of the Monroe Hotel as its cook. He made his home at the hotel. During that period of time, he was not the head of a family. He had been married, but his wife had been divorced from him, and had obtained the custody of their only child, a daughter. He was a colored man. He had formerly lived at Oskaloosa. He had a sister resident there. Shortly prior to September, 1916, he became afflicted with an ailment which proved to be quick consumption. He was advised by his physician to take a rest, and to seek recuperation. He once contemplated going to a sanitarium. He finally decided to go to the home of his sister at Oskaloosa. He went there about September 1, 1916, and died there on October 19th. His belongings were few, and in the main were portable in a trunk or suit case which he carried with him to Oskaloosa. He left a few items of property, including a bedstead, at Albia. He had an understanding with his employer that his place would be kept open for his return, in case of improved health. He had two bank passbooks, one of which showed a deposit of $ 713 in the Peoples Savings Bank, and the other showed a deposit of $ 629 in the Farmers and Miners Savings Bank. The banks respectively made no defense against these deposit claims. They admit their liability respectively to the proper holder of the passbooks. It is the claim of Marie Buckner, defendant, that the decedent gave to her these passbooks and the funds represented thereby, a few days before his death. The real controversy is over the ownership of these passbooks. Each bank asks, in effect, that the plaintiff, as administratrix, and the defendant Marie Buckner, as alleged donee, shall interplead, and that the question of such ownership may be adjudicated, so that the banks may be protected by such adjudications.
I. The appellees filed a motion to dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction. The ground of attack is that the notice of appeal was not addressed to the plaintiff appellee. The notice of appeal was in the following form:
It will be noted that this notice was not addressed to the plaintiff, but was addressed to her attorneys, as such. We have frequently held that a notice should be addressed to the person for whom it is intended. See In re Estate of Anderson, 125 Iowa 670, 101 N.W. 510; Steele v. Murry, 80 Iowa 336, 45 N.W. 1030.
Section 4114 of the Code provides:
"An appeal is taken and perfected by the service of a notice in writing on the adverse party, his agent, or any attorney who appeared for him in the case in the court below."
This section deals with the matter of service of the notice, rather than with its requisite form or contents. If this notice had been addressed to the plaintiff, it could undoubtedly have been properly served upon plaintiff's attorneys. Is it a fatal defect in the notice that it was addressed to the plaintiff's attorneys as such? There is a certain trend indicated in our past holdings which invites the argument made by the appellees against the validity of this notice. No case, however, has actually gone thus far. To hold the notice fatally defective in this case would be to take a step farther than we have gone heretofore. To so hold would be exceedingly technical. The notice as drawn unequivocally discloses an intent to notify the plaintiff, through her attorneys as such, that she has appealed. In Bloom v. Sioux City Traction Co., 148 Iowa 452, 126 N.W. 909, we held that it was not a fatal defect in a notice of appeal that it was not addressed to the clerk of the district court. It was actually served upon him, and we held this to be sufficient. This was put upon the ground of the want of interest on the part of the clerk; but it was, nevertheless, a qualification of the broad proposition that the failure to address the notice to the party served is necessarily fatal to the validity of the notice. In Pilkington v. Potwin, 163 Iowa 86, 93, there was a failure to address the notice to the defendant, I. A. Potwin, and a failure also to address the same to his attorneys as such. Neither was there any acceptance of service by the attorneys as such. On the contrary, the attorneys accepted service as such for another defendant only. Our holding in that case, therefore, does not reach the case at bar. In Sleeper v. Killion, 166 Iowa 205, 147 N.W. 314, the validity of an original notice was involved. It was actually served upon two minors. It was not addressed to them. It did not indicate in any manner that they were parties to the suit entitled at the head of the notice. Neither did it indicate in any manner that they had any interest in such suit, nor that any interest of theirs was under attack. It was held that the notice was fatally defective, and conferred no jurisdiction over the minors. It will be seen that the holding in that case dealt with substance, and not mere form. In the case of Pilkington v. Potwin, the opinion lays some stress upon the fact that the notice had been addressed neither to I. A. Potwin nor to his attorneys as such, and that there had been no purported service upon his attorneys as such.
We reach the conclusion that, in the notice before us, there was no room for mistake or doubt as to the real purport of the alleged notice of appeal, and that it should be held sufficient to address a notice of the appeal to the attorneys of the appellees as such, at least in any case where the service of notice of appeal is made upon the attorneys as such.
It should be noted, also, that a service of such notice upon the attorneys of the appellee is not a substituted service, in the ordinary sense, such as a leaving of copy at the place of residence with a member of the family; nor is it a constructive service, in the sense that a publication of a notice is. The relations of a litigant to his attorneys in the litigation are so close and active, and the responsibility of an attorney to his client in such a case is so definite and quasi official in its nature, that a notice to the attorney should be deemed the practical equivalent of actual notice to the client. We reach the conclusion that the motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction should be denied.
II. The defendant Marie Buckner filed a motion for a change of place of trial from Monroe County to Mahaska County, on the ground that this was a personal action against her, that she was a resident of Mahaska County, and that there was no warrant for bringing a personal action against her in Monroe County. This motion was overruled. Code Section 3501 provides that personal actions, except as otherwise provided, must be brought in a county in which some of the defendants actually reside. In each of the cases before us, the defendant bank did reside in Monroe County. If, therefore, Marie Buckner was a proper party defendant in an action brought against a resident of Monroe County, she was not entitled to a change of venue, under Code Section 3502. Was she a proper party defendant?
Code Section 3462 provides:
"Any person may be made a defendant who has or claims an interest in the controversy adverse to the plaintiff, or who is a necessary party to a complete determination or settlement of the question involved in the action, except as otherwise expressly provided."
Code Section 3466 provides:
...
To continue reading
Request your trial