Tower Credit Corp. v. State by Dickinson

• Citation: 187 So.2d 923
• Decision Date: 16 June 1966
• Docket Number: No. 486,486
• Parties: Blue Sky L. Rep. P 70,718 TOWER CREDIT CORPORATION, Consumer Credit Corporation, Indian River Loan Company, Financial Corporation of Florida, Central Factors, Inc., R. C. Fernon, Dorothy Fernon and Fred Koepp, Appellants, v. STATE of Florida, by Fred O. DICKINSON, Jr., Comptroller, Earl Faircloth, Attorney General, and Broward Williams, State Treasurer, as and constituting the Florida Securities Commission, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

Page 923

187 So.2d 923

Blue Sky L. Rep. P 70,718

TOWER CREDIT CORPORATION, Consumer Credit Corporation, Indian River Loan Company, Financial Corporation of Florida, Central Factors, Inc., R. C. Fernon, Dorothy Fernon and Fred Koepp, Appellants, v. STATE of Florida, by Fred O. DICKINSON, Jr., Comptroller, Earl Faircloth, Attorney General, and Broward Williams, State Treasurer, as and constituting the Florida Securities Commission, et al., Appellees.

No. 486.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

June 16, 1966.

Rehearing Denied July 18, 1966.

Miller Walton and Thomas N. Holloway, of Walton, Lantaff, Schroeder, Atkins, Carson & Wahl, Miami, for appellants.

Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Frank A. Orlando, Asst. Atty. Gen., Miami, and Milton J. Wallace, Asst. Atty. Gen. and Gen. Counsel for Florida Securities Commission, Miami, for appellees.

SMITH, Chief Judge.

In this same case on a prior interlocutory appeal this court affirmed a temporary restraining order entered by the trial court, Tower Credit Corporation v. State, Fla.App.1966, 183 So.2d 255. Subsequent to the entry of that order the defendants filed a motion to vacate the order appointing a receiver and to dissolve the temporary restraining order insofar as it applied to the appellants here. The court heard the testimony of the parties and denied the defendants' motion, and these defendants now appeal from that order.

The defendants, Tower Credit Corporation, Consumer Credit Corporation and Financial Corporation of Florida, contend that the court did not have jurisdiction to appoint a receiver for these corporations because each of their places of business was in Hillsborough County and neither had any office, place of business of property in Martin County. Resolution of the point requires a chronological statement of the evolution of some of the facets of the territorial jurisdiction of the circuit court.

Prior to the Constitution of 1885 the common law prevailing was that no court could send and have its processes executed beyond its territorial boundaries without express constitutional or legislative authority and neither existed. ¹ A circuit court having jurisdiction of the parties could, however, establish the rights in and define and declare the liens upon property in another circuit although it could not decree a sale by its officers of that property. ² Section 6(3) of Article V of the Constitution of 1885, F.S.A. provided: '* * * The circuit courts and circuit judges shall have such extra-territorial jurisdiction in chancery cases as may be prescribed by law.' Pursuant to that constitutional authority in 1887 ³ territorial jurisdiction was expanded by providing that, when any suit was brought in a county in which the defendant did not reside or could not be found, process could be served in the county where the defendant resided or could be found. The act contained the proviso, however, that it did not authorize suits to be brought in any county other than that in which the defendant resided or the cause of action accrued or the property in litigation was located. In 1895 the Supreme Court construed that statute to mean that, if suit was not brought in one of the designated counties, then, there was no statutory authority for service of process in another county. ⁴ In the same year and immediately thereafter our present law was enacted ⁵ which provides that in all civil cases process when issued out of any circuit court shall run throughout the state and be directed to all and singular the sheriffs of the state. This statute gave each circuit court jurisdiction over all residents of the state regardless of the county in which they lived and when reached by process they became subject to the orders of the court. ⁶ Thus, beginning with the Act of 1895 and continuing to the present where a circuit court has jurisdiction of a cause of action it may acquire jurisdiction of the defendants by service of process wherever the defendants may be found within the state, regardless of the county in which they live, and, except as to purely local actions involving property situated beyond its territorial limits, it may, as an auxiliary, incidental or conservatory measure, cause its process to be exercised in any part of the state, and the exercise of such power does not confer extra-territorial jurisdiction upon the circuit courts in violation of any expressed or implied prohibition in the constitution. ⁷ The law announced in the decision of 1875 ⁸ was changed in order that a circuit court which had jurisdiction of the cause of action had which acquired jurisdiction of the defendants could appoint a receiver of property located beyond the territorial limits of the court. ⁹

In 1901 Chapter 4986 was enacted which now appears as F.S.A. § 62.03 and provides:

'62.03. Venue of receiverships when property in more than one circuit.--Whenever an application shall be made for the appointment of a receiver to take charge of either real or personal property, or both, and the property is situated in more than one of the judicial circuits of the State of Florida, the court in appointing said receiver shall have jurisdiction over the entire property for the purposes of that suit. Provided, that the application for appointment of the receiver must be made to the judge of a judicial circuit in which the principal or main place of business, residence or office of the defendant is situated; and the court to which such application is made shall have exclusive jurisdiction thereof, and any action on the application by the said court, either affirmative or negative, shall be final, subject, however, to a right of appeal.'

From the foregoing it may be seen that this statute was not a grant of jurisdiction to a circuit court to appoint a receiver to take charge of property situated beyond the territorial limits of that court because the court already had that jurisdiction. In fact, a circuit court with jurisdiction of a foreign corporation by process served on its officers may appoint a receiver over the corporation's property although the property is situated in another state, but it cannot send its receiver beyond its jurisdiction to enforce its decree; however, it may act directly on the parties before it concerning property located in another jurisdiction. ¹⁰ When enacted the title of the act was 'An Act Enlarging the Chancery Jurisdiction in the Appointment of Receivers'. The title may be used as an aid in its interpretation. The section heading, 'Venue of receiverships when property in more than one circuit', was not a part of the act. It was added by the revisers in the process of statutory revision and is therefore not a proper matter for consideration in the interpretation of the statute. ¹¹ There also already existed the multiple venue statute ¹² making venue in a suit against two or more defendants residing in different counties in the county in which and defendant resides.

With all the foregoing in mind we emphasize the fact that F.S.A. § 62.03 provides '(t)hat the application for appointment of The receiver must be made to The Judge of a judicial circuit in which the principal or main place of business, residence or office of The defendant is situated * * *.' (Emphasis added.) The statute has no application to the case at bar because no place exists which is The main place of business of The defendant as there are here multiple defendants with their main place of business in more than one county. This statute merely made what was formerly concurrent jurisdiction of each of the circuit courts the exclusive jurisdiction of the circuit court of the county in which the main place of business of the (meaning one as distinguished from multiple) defendant is situate. No such exclusive jurisdiction existed her because of the several main places of business of the several defendants.

It should also be remembered that the appointment of a receiver is a remedy ancillary to the cause of action here in suit. The real cause of action here involves initially the...