4 Wash. 519 | Wash. | 1892
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The mere fact that the transcript was two days late in reaching the clerk of this court should not, in our judgment, work a dismissal of the appeal. Nor does there seem to have been any necessity for giving the original judgment defendant notice of the appeal. It was not a party to the garnishment order, decree or judgment, and was not mentioned in it, except by incidental reference. And the like remark is true of the North Pacific Insurance Company. Each garnishee stands alone, and is not interested in orders made against others.
The appellants here are the St. Paul German Insurance Company and the Hekla Fire Insurance Company. The respondents were citizens and residents of the State of Oregon, and had a claim for goods sold against the Coeur d’Alene Clothing Company, of Wallace, Idaho, which they sued upon in the superior court of Pierce county, August 1, 1890. On the same day the respondents caused a writ of attachment to be issued against the Cbeur d’Alene Clothing Company, as a foreign corporation. Appellants were foreign fire insurance corporations doing business regularly in Washington, with a statutory attorney resident at Tacoma. The sheriff of Spokane county served garnishment notices upon appellants’ soliciting agent at Spokane, intending thereby to secure the claim of respondents upon insurance money due, or about to become due, from appellants
1. As to the service upon the soliciting agent at Spokane, the act of March 27,1890, § 10 (Gen. Stat., § 2722), appears to have been intended to provide for a resident attorney of each foreign insurance company upon whom all process should be served, and we think that the provisions of the act of February 2, 1888, authorizing service of a summons upon certain agents of insurance companies must thereafter be restricted to the service of summons alone.
2. The jurisdiction of the court in this case, then, depended on whether property of the defendant, the Cceur d’Alene Clothing Company, was attached under the notice left with Powell for.the attorney Burns. For, without the levy of an attachment, the courts of this state could have no jurisdiction of the principal defendant, which was a for. eign corporation, was never served except by publication, and did not appear, or submit itself to the jurisdiction.
Appellants raise the point that, as they are foreign corporations, they are not subject to garnishment proceedings in this state. But it is well settled that where the right to do business in a state is conceded to a foreign corporation by a statute, such as ours, wherein there is a condition that it shall appoint an attorney upon whom service in any proceedings in the courts of the state may be made, the corporation becomes a resident of the state, and, to such intents and purposes, a domestic corporation. Barr v. King, 96 Pa. St. 485; Roche v. Rhode Island Ins. Ass’n, 2 Ill. App. 360; Drake on Attachments, § 478.
But courts cannot, with any regard for justice, do less than permit a corporation to show that, in some other equal jurisdiction, it has already become liable as garnishee for the whole or a part of the amount of its debt to the principal defendant, and when that showing is made, recognize, the priority and give judgment for what remains.
Accordingly, in this case, the judgment will be reversed and remanded, with instructions to the court below to proceed to enter judgments for such sums against the appellants, respectively, as may be made to appear by the parties to be due from them to the Ooeur d’Alene Clothing Company, after the amounts due Greenhood, Bohn & Co. have been
Anders, C. J., and Hoyt, Dunbar and Scott, JJ., concur.