The Nat'l Bank Of Augusta v. The Southern Porcelain Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 31 July 1875
• Citation: 55 Ga. 36
• Parties: The National Bank of Augusta, plaintiff in error. v. The Southern Porcelain Manufacturing Company et al., defendants in error.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

55 Ga. 36

The National Bank of Augusta, plaintiff in error. v. The Southern Porcelain Manufacturing Company et al., defendants in error.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

(Atlanta, July Term, 1875.)

Constitutional law. Pleadings. Corporations. Jurisdiction. Service. Before Judge Gibson. Richmond Superior Court. October Term, 1874.

Reported in the opinion. Frank H. Miller, for plaintiff in error.

Barnes & Cumming, for defendants.

Jackson, Judge.

This action was brought for the recovery of a large sum ofmoney due the plaintiff by the defendant upon contracts made *in Augusta, Georgia. Service was made upon James Hope, the president of the defendant, the Southern Porcelain Manufacturing Company, at Augusta, in the county of Richmond, in this state. A plea to the jurisdiction was filed by the said James Hope, not as president of the company, but in his individual character, as one interested in the suit, though not a party thereto, under the act of 23d of August, 1872, setting up the fact that the defendant was incorporated in South Carolina and could not be sued in the courts of Georgia except by attachment. The court below sustained the plea and the plaintiff excepted, and three questions are made here for our adjudication: 1st. Can one, not a party to the suit, but merely swearing that he is interested therein, put in a plea to the jurisdiction? 2d. Can a South Carolina corporation, under the facts disclosed in the record, be sued in Georgia? 3d. Is service upon the president of the defendant, under the facts here, sufficient service?

1. In regard to the first question, we think the act of 1872 broad enough to cover all pleas. It enacts that "any party interested may make his or their plea or pleas, and such plea or pleas shall be as good in law as if made by the real defendant to the record." If that act be law, the plea may have been made legally by Hope individually. Is it law? That turns upon the point of the constitutionality of the act. The latter branch of the fifth paragraph of the fourth section of the third article of the constitution is in these words: "Nor shall any law or ordinance pass, which refers to more than one subject matter or contains matter different from what is expressed in the title thereof." The substance of the body of this act is, that anybody interested may defend and plead. The title thereof is "An act to amend an act approved October 24th, 1870, entitled an act to authorize all pleas and defenses to be sworn to before certain officers of other states or countries, and to prescribe the legal effect of the official attestation of such officer, and to carry into effect article five, section three of the constitution of this state."

There would seem to be on the face of this title two subjects matter, both *of which appear to us to be different from the body of the act. The body of the act is to enable persons, not parties of record, to defend suits not brought against themselves by filing any plea they please thereto whether the real defendant defends or not, if they be interested therein. The title, in one of its phases, is to amend an act which has relation only to how pleas shall be verified if the party to the record be beyond the limits of the state. We think the body ofthe act differs essentially from such title. An amendment to an act authorizing parties out of the state to verify pleas, should have relation to pleas made outside of the state and by parties to the record, and by reading the title to this act we think that no one could reasonably expect to find in its body authority to anybody, in the state or out of it, to defend cases when he is not sued at all.

If we look to the other phase of the title, it does not help the act much. This part of the title is to carry into effect article five, section three, of the constitution. That section of article five embraces many subjects. It is divided into four paragraphs. The only one to which the act can be supposed to refer is the latter part of paragraph three, which reads: "The court shall render judgment without the verdict of a jury, in all civil cases founded on contract, where an issuable defense is not filed on oath." Even if this paragraph were directly referred to in the title, we cannot see exactly how this act carries it out. The object of the constitution in requiring the title and body of the act to harmonize is to put the legislators upon warning as to what they are about to do. We do not think this title does so. It would have been quite easy, and it would indeed have required fewer words than this title contains, to have entitled this enactment, "an act to allow all persons interested to defend by plea, suits where the real defendant to the record declines...