Yedwab v. M. A. Richards Corp...

• Decision Date: 30 July 1948
• Citation: 60 A.2d 310,137 N.J.L. 448
• Parties: YEDWAB et al. v. M. A. RICHARDS CORPORATION.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

137 N.J.L. 448

60 A.2d 310

YEDWAB et al.

v.M. A. RICHARDS CORPORATION.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

July 30, 1948.

Action by Murray L. Yedwab and others, doing business as Tipplers, against the M. A. Richards Corporation, to recover for damages allegedly resulting from breach of contract for manufacture, sale, and delivery by defendant to plaintiffs of tavern bars, equipment, and accessories. On defendant's rule to show cause why service of process should not be set aside.

Service of summons and complaint set aside and complaint dismissed.

Before HEHER, J., at the Passaic Circuit.

Robert J. Bunevich, of Passaic, for the rule.

A. Leon Kohlreiter, of Paterson (Archibald Kreiger, of Paterson, of counsel), opposed.

HEHER, Justice.

The action is for damages alleged to have resulted from the breach of a contract for the manufacture, sale and delivery by defendant to plaintiff retailers of tavern bars, equipment and accessories. The gravamen of the complaint is in part delivery of defective merchandise and in part nondelivery of bars and equipment in the quantity provided by the contract. Plaintiffs are residents of Paterson, in this State; defendant is a foreign corporation, resident in the State of New York.

Service of the summons and complaint was made upon the president of the corporation at plaintiffs' place of business in Paterson, whither he had repaired for a discussion of matters in dispute; and the motion is to quash the service on these grounds: (1) That the defendant is a foreign corporation not amenable to the jurisdiction of this court; and (2) that, even though it is otherwise subject to the court's jurisdiction, the corporate officer upon whom service was made was enticed into the State for the purpose by trick or device, and the service is therefore ineffective. Both points are well taken.

There is jurisdiction in personam over a foreign corporation only if it is doing business in the state through its agents, and then only if there is service of process within the state upon a duly authorized officer or agent of the corporation. Roll-O-Matic, Inc., v. J. B. Marshall, Inc., 117 N.J.L. 463, 189 A. 661; Consolidated Textile Corp. v. Gregory, 289 U.S. 85, 53 S.Ct. 529, 77 L.Ed. 1047; Washington-Virginia R. Co. v. Real Estate Trust Co., 238 U.S. 185, 35 S.Ct. 818; 59 L.Ed. 1262; James-Dickinson Farm Mortgage Co. v. Harry, 273 U.S. 119, 47 S.Ct. 308, 71 L.Ed. 569; Cannon Mfg. Co. v. Cudahy Packing Co., 267 U.S. 333, 45 S.Ct. 250, 69 L.Ed. 634. In the absence of the element of consent, in one form or another, the doing of business is indispensable to the fulfillment of the requirement of due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. Riverside & Dan River Cotton Mills v. Menefee, 237 U.S. 189, 35 S.Ct. 579, 59 L.Ed. 910. The state's jurisdiction in personam does not extend beyond its own borders. Process in actions of this class does not run from one state to another. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565.

‘Doing business' is a term that is not susceptible of precise definition automatically resolving every case. Each case turns upon its own circumstances. The determinative is the essence of the transaction or series of transactions. Here, the proofs are conclusive that defendant was not doing business in this State at the time of the service of the summons and complaint, of such character and degree as to constitute presence therein and so to render it amenable to the general jurisdiction of the courts of the State. There was no evidence of a course of trade within the State. Only the affair in question is offered as tending to establish the doing of business within the State; but it plainly does not have that quality. The contract of manufacture and sale was made in the State of New York; and defendant's purely incidental undertaking to counsel with plaintiffs as to the display of the goods and merchandise in its store and show windows in Paterson did not serve to render the transaction the doing of business within this State, and thus to subject the defendant corporation to the State's territorial jurisdiction in personam. This is the sum of the matter as asserted by plaintiffs; the defendant corporation did not thereby enter this State and engage in business here within the intendmant of the principle now invoked.

Jurisdiction involves the fundamentals of due process; and the mere giving of advice as to display and sales appeal did not constitute the doing of a local business separable from the interstate transaction, so as to make the corporation subject to State control and liable to the service of its judicial process. That was but an incident...