29 Mo. 75 | Mo. | 1859
delivered the opinion of the court.
It must be admitted that the proper construction of our statute concerning attachments as applicable to corporations, taken in connection with the general statute concerning corporations, is not very plain.
The attachment law provides that this writ may be sued out, first, where the defendant is not a resident of this state; and, second, where the defendant is a corporation whose chief office or. place of business is out of this'state. Each of these allegations was made in this case; but as the second was clearly disproved, the first only was relied upon.
The act concerning corporations says: “ Any corporation incorporated by any other state or country, and having property in this state, shall be liable to be sued and the property of the same shall be subject to attachment, in the same manner as individuals residents of other states or countries and having property [here] are now liable to be sued and their property subject to be attached.” (R. C. 1855, p. 375, § 22.) The terms employed in this section are broad enough to embrace all foreign corporations, whether their chief place of business be within or without this state. If we construe the first clause in the first section of the attachment law to include corporations, it must follow that the second clause is limited entirely to domestic corporations. Otherwise, the second clause is repugnant to the first; for if the mere fact that a corporation is a foreign one is sufficient to bring it within the first clause, then it is of no consequence where the chief office is located, and the section, which makes that circumstance the one upon which the attachment is authorized, must be limited to domestic corporations having their chief place of business without this state.
The language of this second section, it will be seen, will include both foreign and domestic corporations, and it seems more natural and reasonable so to construe it; for, as the legislature, in the first section, speak of nonresidents generally, and the term itself would not naturally include corporations, and as they proceed in the very next clause to make a special provision for the case of corporations and to point
It is not perceived that any hardship can arise from this construction of the law. It is the law in relation to an individual, who takes up his residence here and becomes amenable to the law of this state and its process. So the foreign corporation takes up its abode here, puts out its advertisement to the public, with the name of its president or other officers, and affords all the facilities for serving the ordinary process of the law upon it, which any corporation with a
The other judges concurring, the judgment is reversed.
This case was decided at the March term, J859, of the supreme court. A motion for a rehearing being filed, it was continued to the October term. The motion was overruled.