Western Electrical Supply Company v. Abbeville Electric Light Power Company

• Decision Date: 03 April 1905
• Docket Number: No. 178,178
• Citation: Western Electrical Supply Company v. Abbeville Electric Light Power Company, 197 U.S. 299, 25 S.Ct. 481, 49 L.Ed. 765 (1905)
• Parties: WESTERN ELECTRICAL SUPPLY COMPANY, Plff. in Err. , v. ABBEVILLE ELECTRIC LIGHT & POWER COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

197 U.S. 299

25 S.Ct. 481

49 L.Ed. 765

WESTERN ELECTRICAL SUPPLY COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v ABBEVILLE ELECTRIC LIGHT & POWER COMPANY.

No. 178.

Argued and submitted March 14, 1905.

Decided April 3, 1905.

Messrs.Lee W. Grant and Ralston & Siddons for plaintiff in error.

Mr.William N. Graydon for defendant in error.Mr. Chief Justice Fuller delivered the opinion of the court:

The Abbeville Electric Light & Power Company, a corporation of South Carolina, brought this action in the circuit court of Abbeville county, South Carolina, against the Western Electrical Supply Company, a corporation of Missouri, by service of summons and complaint on one George F. Schminke, as agent of the defendant.The complaint alleged that 'the cause of action set forth herein arose in this state,' and set up the breach of a contract of guaranty in respect of a machine for generating electricity, sold by defendant to plaintilff.Defendant appeared specially, and moved 'to set aside the service of the summons herein on the ground that the party served with the summons and complaint herein on the seventh day of November, 1900, was not an agent of the defendant.'The motion was heard on affidavits at the February term, 1901, of the circuit court, the service set aside, and the case dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

The circuit judge was of opinion that Schminke was not 'an agent in the sense in which 'any agent' is used in the Code.'The case was then carried by appeal to the supreme court of South Carolina, and the judgment below was reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings.61 S. C. 361, 55 L. R. A. 146, 85 Am. St. Rep. 890, 39 S. E. 559.

The court held, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice McIver, that under the second paragraph of § 155 of the Code as amended by an act approved March 2, 1899, the facts being considered in connection with § 1466 of the Revised Statutes of 1893, as amended by an act of 1897, the service was good and valid.

In this view the court said: 'The case must be regarded as a case in which a domestic corporation, having, as it supposed, a claim against a foreign corporation doing business in this state, arising out of a contract made and to be performed in this state, has undertaken to commence its action against such foreign corporation by serving, personally, within the limits of this state, an agent of such foreign corporation with a copy of the summons; and in such a casewe do not think that any authority has been or can be cited, which holds that the state court had not thereby acquired jurisdiction of the foreign corporation.'

On the other hand, the court held that if the case were one in which the plaintiff, a domestic corporation, had brought its action on a contract not made, and not to be...