Wabash Ry. Co. v. Peterson
| Decision Date | 19 December 1919 |
| Docket Number | 32554 |
| Citation | 175 N.W. 523,187 Iowa 1331 |
| Parties | WABASH RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant, v. ELMER A. PETERSON et al., Appellees |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Pottawattamie District Court.--SHELBY CULLISON, Judge.
THE appellees brought suit against the appellant railway company and another, in a Missouri court, at Kansas City. The appellant obtained a temporary injunction, restraining Peterson and Hess from further promoting the prosecution of said action, and from doing any act or thing in furtherance thereof. The motion to dissolve this injunction was sustained; hence this appeal.
Reversed.
Tinley Mitchell, Pryor & Ross, for appellant.
George H. Mayne, for appellees.
I.
The petition filed in the Missouri court claims of said railway company $ 20,000 for damages alleged to have been caused by an assault upon Peterson on the part of one Terrell, while acting as conductor in the employ of said company; $ 5,000 more is claimed on account of alleged wrongful arrest and imprisonment of Peterson; and $ 5,000 more for alleged malicious prosecution of Peterson. The plaintiff contends that the suit is brought in bad faith, and, even if that were not so, there is no good reason why it should not be prosecuted to a termination in Council Bluffs, instead of Kansas City. Defendants respond with a denial of bad faith, and with an averment that Terrell is a resident and citizen of Kansas City; that Peterson has a right to a joint recovery against him and the company; and that the suit is brought in Kansas City because there only can Peterson have a joint recovery. The facts are not in dispute. Before the suit was brought in Missouri, defendant Hess heard Terrell testify that Terrell was a resident and citizen of Kansas City, and makes affidavit that he believed said testimony to be true. No service has been had on Terrell, because the sheriff was unable to find him in Kansas City. There is an undisputed affidavit that affiant knows Terrell well, and that he is a resident and citizen of the state of Kansas. The acts complained of in the Missouri suit were done at Council Bluffs, if anywhere; the plaintiff company has an agent at Council Bluffs, upon whom personal service of notice must be had, and it is suable there, and suable also in Kansas City; both Peterson and Hess live at Council Bluffs; so do most, if not all, of those who may be witnesses; all the records that bear on said alleged wrongful imprisonment and malicious prosecution are at Council Bluffs. Kansas City is some 200 miles from Council Bluffs, and the Missouri court cannot compel the attendance of the witnesses.
II. As to the claim that the bringing of the suit was in bad faith, and a mere attempt to vex and harass. It is somewhat difficult to believe that Peterson was greatly moved by a desire to have a $ 30,000 claim established against a conductor, as well as against the railroad for which the conductor acted. But, in view of the fact that there is a legal right to a joint suit, and the fact that the defendant Hess believed that the only place where a joint recovery could be had was Kansas City, we shall not place our decision upon the alleged bad faith in bringing the suit.
III. Grant the forum was chosen because Kansas City was honestly believed to be the only place where a joint recovery could be had. But, as has been seen, it is now known that such recovery is no more possible in Kansas City than in Council Bluffs. Grant that the mere bringing of the suit should not, when brought, have been restrained. But the purpose of bringing the suit having failed, and its further prosecution being a needless hardship on plaintiff, without advantage to Peterson,--if provision be made for reimbursing Peterson for the taxable costs expended in bringing suit,--should not so much of the injunction stand as restrains the defendant "from further promoting the prosecution of the action, and from doing any act or thing in furtherance thereof?" What reasons for dissolving this much of the injunction are advanced?
IV. The first argument is that the Iowa court has no jurisdiction to restrain the prosecution of a suit in a sister state, because that would be an attempt on the part of the Iowa courts to control the action of courts in a sister state; that to exercise such a jurisdiction is in violation of guarantees afforded by the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States. It is settled by the overwhelming weight of authority--indeed, there is no dispute in authority--that such an injunction as is here prayed acts merely upon those who are within the jurisdiction of the court, as a regulation of their conduct, and is not an attempt to control the action of the courts in a sister state, and is not in contravention of any right given by the Constitution or laws of the United States; and said objection is untenable. 14 Ruling Case Law 417; Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U.S. 107 (10 S.Ct. 269, 33 L.Ed. 538); Weaver v. Alabama G. S. R. Co., (Ala.) 200 Ala. 432, 76 So. 364. Nor is the first objection well taken. While the courts will exercise the power cautiously, and for substantial reasons only, they have the power, and its exercise is not an interference with the powers of the courts of the sister state. Jones v. Hughes, 156 Iowa 684, 137 N.W. 1023; 1 High on Injunctions (2d Ed.) 75; Weaver v. Alabama G. S. R. Co., (Ala.) 200 Ala. 432, 76 So. 364; 2 Story's Equity Jurisprudence (13th Ed.) 207; American Exp. Co. v. Fox, 135 Tenn. 489 (187 S.W. 1117); Mason v. Harlow, 84 Kan. 277 (114 P. 218); Note to Eingartner v. Illinois S. Co., 59 Am. St. Rep. 859, 879. The trial judge who dissolved the injunction so held, and with these authorities and this pronouncement below, we meet the repetition here of the claim of appellees that there is no power to grant this injunction.
4-a
At the time the Missouri suit was instituted, there was in effect Chapter 293 of the Acts of the Thirty-seventh General Assembly, which is an act dealing with "Offenses against Public Policy." It provides:
"It shall be unlawful for any person, with the intent, or for the purpose of instituting a suit thereon outside of this state, to seek or 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 of this state for such damages, or to do any act or thing in furtherance thereof, in cases 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."
We gather from some of the citations that appellees challenge the constitutionality of this act for having an insufficient title. The title is much more ample than it was in many enactments, the constitutionality of which we have upheld. See State v. Gibson, 189 Iowa 1212 (174 N.W. 34).
4-b
It is urged that such an enactment may not be given extraterritorial effect; that the legislature of a state may not prohibit its citizens from bringing suit wheresoever they elect, and contended that Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Sowers, 213 U.S. 55, 53 L.Ed. 695, 29 S.Ct. 397, so rules. If the Iowa act of assembly in question does not more than define and enforce what the legislature deems it wise to declare the public policy of the state to be, neither the Atchison case nor any other we have been able to find prohibits such declaration of public policy, nor the making it effective as against the citizens and residents of the state. So, on this head, the controlling question is whether the act of the thirty-seventh general assembly is anything more than a declaration concerning what public policy shall be as to bringing certain suits in states other than Iowa. We agree that the act creates a misdemeanor; we agree that the punishment applies only to soliciting such suits as the act describes. But the legislature can declare conduct to be against public policy, though it fails to make such conduct punishable. See Farmers' Sav. Bank v. Jameson, 175 Iowa 676, 157 N.W. 460. In many states, it is not a crime to bring suits in sister states for the purpose of defeating exemptions; but the bringing of such suits has been restrained for being violative of public policy. See Teager v. Landsley, 69 Iowa 725, 27 N.W. 739; Hager v. Adams, 70 Iowa 746, 30 N.W. 36; Wierse v. Thomas, 145 N.C. 261 (59 S.E. 58); Wilson v. Joseph, 107 Ind. 490 (8 N.E. 616). It is true that soliciting only is made punishable, and true there is no evidence of solicitation. But does it follow that the act condemns nothing but the solicitation? So to hold is to overlook that the unsolicited suit works precisely the same hardship that it does when solicited. We conclude that there is power and right to restrain such suit as the one at bar, because, whatever was actually intended, such suit is an evasion of the public policy of this state. Case law dealing with such injunctions has been greatly concerned with whether the bringing of certain suits was violative of public policy. We are relieved from that investigation because the legislature is the supreme interpreter of what is sound public policy, and the bringing of such suits as the one before us has been authoritatively declared to be contrary to public policy of this state. And the act has cleared up the difficulty that has at times been found where the complainant was a corporation. For the statute expressly places corporations who may be served with notice in Iowa in the class against whom such suits as this may not be maintained.
V. As said, said act of assembly creates a crime, and the...
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