194 F.2d 422 | 2d Cir. | 1951
Lead Opinion
The appellant initiated the present action dm the District Uotint fer the Southern District of New York against the Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System, Inc. (hereinafter called “Hertz”), Edward J. O’Brien, and Charles A. Harrison administrator of the estate of Walter Benedict Baer. Briefly, the complaint alleges that the plaintiff’s intestate was killed on May 29, 1950, in an automobile collision on Route 22 in the State of New York;, that the automobile which caused the death of the deceased was operated by Walter Benedict Baer, was owned by the defendant Edward J. O’Brien, and was rented by Walter Benedict Baer from Edward J. O’Brien; that Edward J. O’Brien rented the automobile to Walter Benedict Baer as a licensee of and on behalf of Hertz, and that the licensee, Edward J. O’Brien, conducted his business in East Norwalk, Conn. Service upon the defendant Hertz was made through a United States Marshal by leaving a copy of the summons and complaint with George R. Gannon, assistant comptroller of the Carey Driveurself System, Inc. (hereinafter called “Carey”), a New York corporation. On the motion of Hertz, Judge Ryan, on the ground that the court lacked jurisdiction over Hertz, vacated the service of the summons and complaint and entered judgment in favor of Hertz. The questions arising on this appeal are whether Hertz is jurisdictionally present in the State of New York, and if so, whether service was properly made. Since we agree with the conclusion reached by the district judge that the court lacked jurisdiction over Hertz, it is unnecessary to decide the latter question.
The jurisdictional presence of a foreign corporation depends on whether the corporation is doing business within the state. People’s Tobacco Co. v. American-Tobacco Co., 246 U.S. 79, 38 S.Ct. 233, 62 L.Ed. 587. From the affidavits it appears-that Hertz maintains no offices of its own and does not directly conduct any business, in New York. However, the appellant contends that Carey was in fact acting as the agent of Hertz in the business transacted by Carey in New York. This contention is based on the following facts: Hertz devised a plan or system of renting automobiles to customers who drive the automobiles themselves, the system being known
This license agreement cannot be described as a subterfuge to avoid local jurisdiction, see Bach v. Friden Calculating Machine Co., 6 Cir., 167 F.2d 679, and does not constitute an appointment by Hertz of Carey as its agent for the purpose of renting automobiles in New York. Echeverry v. Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Co., 2 Cir., 175 F.2d 900. The appellant makes much of the fact that the Manhattan Telephone Directory lists Carey’s address and telephone number under the name of Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System and that an advertisement in the Classified Directory features the name “Hertz” rather than that of Carey. However, it appears that the advertisement is paid for by Carey, and the featuring of the Hertz name is simply a means of directing potential customers to a place which rents automobiles since the Hertz name would in all likelihood be more familiar than that of Carey. In our opinion Carey was not an agent of Hertz to do business in New York but a mere licensee.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment is affirmed.
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring).
I agree with the opinion and decision both in what is explicitly stated and in what is necessarily implied, viz., that we have here on appeal an appealable judgment. In view of developments in this circuit hereinafter noted, I believe it is necessary or at least desirable to indulge in some fuller explanation of this part of our decision. For the parties named as defendants and legally responsible for the one accident which killed plaintiff’s intestate were the administrator of the deceased operator -of the colliding car, the owner, and the asserted licensor under the Hertz Drive-Ur-Self Systems (the present defendant-appellee) and no order or judgment was entered against the first two. Since the core of the case was this single accident, here were all the elements of “jointness” so called, as stressed in Republic of China v. American Express Co., 2 Cir., ISO F.2d 334, 335, 336, to render this separate judgment not immediately appealable under the principles of law in force before the amendment to Fed. Rules Civ.Proc. rule 54(b), 28 U.S.C.A. But here the judge in directing the entry of a final judgment for this -defendant also proceeded under the new form of the rule to determine that there was no just reason for delay. This action by him brought the case within the operation of the statute granting appeals from final decisions of the district courts, 28 U.S. C. § 1291, as we held in Pabellón v. Grace Line, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 169, July 26, 1951, certiorari denied Coston Supply Co. v. Pabellón, 342 U.S. 893, 72 S.Ct. 201, citing numerous decisions of appellate courts on the new rule.
Hence, but for one circumstance, no further comment would be necessary. That circumstance is the decision eight days later by another panel of this court that the rule as thus applied must necessarily be considered invalid: Flegenheimer v. General Mills, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 237, Aug. 3, 1951.
When in 1935 the Supreme Court constituted the Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure and charged it with the duty of drafting a set of rules for effective district court procedure, that Committee was confronted at once with definite problems as to the extent of the Court’s power to adopt particular rules urgently needed to make the new procedure workable. These arose because the questions had not been visualized by the draftsmen of the then Enabling Act, passed on June 19, 193d — the former 28 U.S.C. §§ 723b, 723c — and that act appeared to have certain gaps and ambiguities. The statute granted authority to regulate the practice and procedure in the district courts, and questions hence arose as to the extent of the power by rule to regulate the admission of evidence, to supersede statutes, to provide for appellate practice, and to amend rules once adopted. These were all matters of consequence; they assumed increased importance because the Supreme Court, pursuant to a well understood popular mandate,
The -Committee had no difficulty in reaching at once the decision that rule-making authority existed as to all activities taking place in the district courts, even though they might consequentially affect appellate practice ; this would include such matters as the manner of taking the appeal, allowing the substitution of the simple notice of appeal for the old allowance and citation, and all the details as to making up of the record for transmission to the upper court. It also included, quite clearly, Rule 54(b) in its original form, which accelerated finality of judgment in many instances of the “split judgment,” made useful by the wide joinder of parties and of claims featured in the new procedure. This rule had its definite
But there still remained the problem as to those direct regulations of appellate practice which would be quite necessary to make a new and uniform procedure workable. Faced with this problem the Committee asked the present writer, as its Reporter, to examine the legal background and to report thereon. This he did with the assistance of associates, presenting a lengthy memorandum which was then published in substance as Clark, Power of the Supreme Court to Make Rules of Appellate Procedure, 49 Harv.L.Rev. 1303, 1936. We found that there was considerable reserve power in the Supreme Court from earlier statutes and traditional exercise, as was illustrated over the Court’s history down to and including the Equity Rules of 1912, and that authority existed beyond the 1934 act for these necessary additional rules as well as the others. The Committee adopted this view, but took pains to set it forth with care- — explaining the two classes of rules involved and the lack of question as to the first — in a letter to Chief Justice Hughes of May 1, 1936, which is reprinted as a Foreword to the Preliminary Draft of Rules of Civil Procedure, May 1936, pp. xi, xii. This clear statement — reprinted in the footnote
The subsequent history, whether the rules be viewed as a whole or this particular rule be stressed, amply bears out the interpretation thus originally made. Considering, first, the rule itself, it was at once recognized that its original form of split judgment generally on multiple claims was a definite change and extension of former principles, as, for example, in situations in* volving permissive counterclaims arising out
But t-he change went so far as to infringe on the ancient and settled federal policy against “piecemeal appeals,” see, e. g., Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S. 229, 65 S.Ct. 631, 89 L.Ed. 911, and it became Obvious that some retreat was necessary. Further there developed, notably in this circuit, a con flict of view as to finality with regard to claims against several defendants liable only alternatively or at any rate not jointly. This, then, was one of the rules singled out by the Committee for intensive-restudy in 1943. The extent of the Committee’s consideration is somewhat indicated by the note to earlier drafts of the amendment (Preliminary Draft of Proposed Amendments, May 1944, 64, 65; Second Preliminary Draft, May 1945, 62, 63), but is set forth in some detail in the note in its Report of June 1946, 70-72. The Committee had excellent support through its contacts with the bench and bar and, as it points out, received well-nigh universal approval for its new proposal from these interested and alert groups. What it desired to do was to restore the (historic federal principle, while offering some means of relief for the occasional hard case where immediate review was convenient and desirable. The result was a rational solution achieving these objectives which aroused the enlightened interest, in advance of its actual operation, of the Supreme Court itself in Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp., 338 U.S. 507, 512, 70 S.Ct. 322, 324, 94 L.Ed. 299,
Turning to the other group comprising those which directly regulate appellate practice and which must be a fortiori invalid if those cited above are doubtful, we must certainly include at least Rules 46, 51, 52, 53 (.e), 61, 73, 74, 75, 76, and 81(a) (2), (3), and the former (7). Thus included are rules abolishing exceptions to rulings on evidence, but requiring exceptions to the charge, concerning the .effect of findings or of a report of a master, harmless error, the method and time of taking appeal, and all details as to making up the record, including the abolition of summons and severance and various special procedures made subject to the appeal rules. Here, too, citation of the wealth of supporting precedents must be restrained; reference may be limited to the famous “clearly erroneous” rule as to findings of fact (the uniform rule supplanting the old divided and divergent law and equity reviews and applied in literally hundreds of cases),
Against this formidable array of authority (which, it must be added, appears not to have been within the court’s contemplation) the only rationale suggested in Flegenheimer v. General Mills, supra, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 237, is the inappropriateness of a principle allowing a trial judge to fix the jurisdiction of an appellate court. But the suggestion proves too much or too little. For inevitably the trial judge, and he alone, must time and spark operation of the appellate machinery; it is his product which furnishes the appellate grist and until he acts there is nothing for review. And no appropriate means have yet been devised to make a trial judge decide before he is ready. In any event this is a matter for administrative control through court councils or directors, and not for judicial reprisals affecting litigants. Since the trial judge has such control of the over-all picture, it is somewhat surprising to find question when his action in this small area of confusion is merely canalized so as to be understood by litigants and other courts at a time when that knowledge is most useful. And it is the more confusing when the effect of the rule in allowing the judge to postpone decision until such time as he is ready to signal finality is so readily and completely conceded. Actually the rule carries out present policies with both deftness and definiteness. The latter particularly is a boon to the litigants, as noted by the Court in Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp., supra note 8. It takes care of the few hard cases through the medium of action by the only judicial officer who at that stage of the case can know that they are the cases requiring immediate review. For the others it is a proper adjunct to the enforcement of the policy against piecemeal appeals. The legislature can still changé that policy without reference to the rule if it wishes; the point is that the rule is a help, rather than a hindrance, to the execution of legislative policy. That it has worked well and has been a clarifying and beneficial influence, the cases (at least before Flegenheimer) amply demonstate. It would be a misfortune to have this good and desirable accomplishment now abruptly blotted out.
Flegenheimer v. General Mills, supra, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 237, presents other anomalies, beyond its summary rejection of rule-making. It was a flat repudiation not only of the Pabellón case of a week earlier by another panel of the court, but also of the direct implication on the earlier appeal of the same case before yet another panel, Flegenheimer v. Manitoba Sugar Co., 2 Cir., 182 F.2d 742, that only the judge’s finding under Rule 54(b) was necessary to make the order reviewable. Such freedom from the confines of precedent is confusing not only to the public, but also to colleagues who have no notice of the impending doom before it appears in print.
. Although the court formally interpreted the rule as not applying to accelerate finality in the one instance to which it is applicable (while conceding it power to authorize postponement of finality) this, as is made clear, is an interpretation in extremis to preserve the remnants from invalidity. Both' the clear .language of the amendment and its history with the Advisory Committee [see
. While the cases discussing the amended rule are collected in Pabellon v. Grace Line, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 169, certiorari denied Coston Supply Co. v. Pabellon, 342 U.S. 893, 72 S.Ct. 201, this important history is not stated there, since the writer did not know at the time of the preparation of the opinion that its validity was under attack.
. The background of this is stated in Mitchell, The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, in David Dudley Field Centenary Essays 73, 74-79, 1949.
. “(2) Power of the Supreme Court to make rules in any way relating to the practice on appeals. The statute under which we are operating relates to proceedings in the United States District Courts. Many matters which take place in the lower courts affecting appeals are admittedly within the scope of this statute, such as the settling of the records for appeal. There are many respects, however, in which the Committee found it almost essential to touch practice on appeal. (See, Rule 50 relating to the effect of an error in the admission of evidence; Rule 57 as to the effect of an error in the charge; Rule 70 as to the effect of other errors; Rule 72 as to the manner of taking appeals; and Rule 68 as to the effect of the findings of a court in a jury-waived case.) The Committee felt it absolutely necessary to deal with these subjects. An elaborate memorandum has been prepared dealing with the various statutes enabling the Supreme Court to make rules of practice, and the Committee concluded that if not the particular statute under which it is acting, then under other general statutes the extent to which we have dealt with appeals is within the power of the Court.”
The rules above cited — 50, 57, 70, 72, 68 — became in final enactment Rules 43, 51, 61, 73, and 52.
. Chairman Mitchell cited and relied upon the writer’s article in 49 Harv.L.Rev. 1303, 1936, which is also cited in the Advisory Committee’s note to the completed Rule 73(a), the very important note covering the manner, the subject matter (in considerable part), and — now —the time of appeal
. Compare Nachtman v. Crucible Steel Co. of America, 3 Cir., 165 F.2d 997, 998, with General Electric Co. v. Marvel Rare Metals Co., 287 U.S. 430, 432, 53 S.Ct. 202, 77 L.Ed. 408; or Reeves v. Beardall, 316 U.S. 283, 62 S.Ct. 1085, 86 L.Ed. 1478, and Collins v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp., 2 Cir., 106 F.2d 83, overruling Sheppy v. Stevens, 2 Cir., 200 F. 946, and Stromberg Motor Devices Co. v. Arnson, 2 Cir., 239 F. 891, with such earlier cases. See also Audi Vision Inc. v. RCA Mfg. Co., 2 Cir., 136 F.2d 621, 623, 624, 147 A.L.R. 574, and Toomey v. Toomey, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 77, 149 F.2d 19. Mr. Dodge’s reference to “piecemeal judgments” at the Washington Institute, Proceedings of Washington Institute on Federal Rules 174, 1938, appears to have been prophetic.
. See note 6 supra.
. The Court, after quoting the new rule in full and stating its “obvious purpose,” as indicated by the committee notes, “to reduce as far as possible the uncertainty and the hazard assumed by a litigant who either does or does not appeal from a judgment of the character we have here” because of the opportunity it gives litigants “to obtain from the District Court a clear statement of what that court is intending with reference to finality, and if such a direction is denied, the litigant can at least protect himself accordingly,” then states:
“But this new rule — which became effective on March 19, 1948 — was not in effect at the time of the 1947 decree in this case and it would not be appropriate to attempt to determine its effect on cases of this kind beyond observing that it may do much to prevent them from coming here.”
. The validity of the rule as a district court regulation is specifically upheld in Winsor v. Daumit, 7 Cir., 179 F.2d 475, 477. Other cases are cited in Pabellon v. Grace Line, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 169, certiorari denied Coston Supply Co. v. Pabellon, 342 U.S. 893, 72 S.Ct. 201; they include such an extensivq application of the rule as in Lyman v. Remington Rand, 2 Cir., 188 F.2d 306, questioned in 5 Moore’s Federal Practice 2926-2930, 2d Ed. 1951. Thus compare the explicit language of Etten v. Kauffman, 3 Cir., 179 F.2d 302, certiorari denied 340 U.S. 931, 71 S.Ct. 492, 95 L.Ed. 672, and the direct implication of Flegenheimer v. Manitoba Sugar Co., 2 Cir., 182 F.2d 742, contrary to the later holding in the same case cited in the text. See also 47 Col.L. Rev. 239; 32 Minn.L.Rev. 624 ; 56 Yale L.J. 141; 58 Yale L.J. 1186; Moore’s Commentary on the U. S. Judicial Code 515-518, 1949; and cf. also 47 Mich.L.. Rev 233; 49 Mich.L.Rev. 442; and 15 U. of Chi.L.Rev. 960.
. After Flegenheimer v. General Mills, supra, 2 Cir., 191 F.2d 237, a similar re-
. Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Duncan, 311 U.S. 243, 61 S.Ct. 189, 85 L.Ed. 147; Cone v. West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., 330 U.S. 212, 67 S.Ct. 752, 91 L.Ed. 849; Globe Liquor Co. v. San Roman, 332 U.S. 571, 68 S.Ct. 246, 92 L.Ed. 177.
. See, e. g., Sartor v. Arkansas Natural Gas Corp., 321 U.S. 620, 64 S.Ct. 724, 88 L.Ed. 967; Griffin v. Griffin, 327 U.S. 220, 235, 236, 66 S.Ct. 556, 90 L.Ed. 635.
. United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 394, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 92 L.Ed. 746; United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 338 U.S. 338, 341, 342, 70 S.Ct. 177, 94 L.Ed. 150.
. Mitchell v. White Consolidated, Inc., 336 U.S. 958, 69 S.Ct. 889, 93 L.Ed. 1111; Petition of Schuette, 2 Cir., 178 F.2d 920; Smith v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 2 Cir., 174 F.2d 592; McAllister v. Cosmopolitan Shipping Co., 2 Cir., 169 F.2d 4, reversed on the merits, Cosmopolitan Shipping Co. v. McAllister, 337 U.S. 783, 69 S.Ct. 1317, 93 L.Ed. 1692; Preston v. Aetna.Life Ins. Co., 7 Cir., 174 F.2d 10, certiorari denied Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Preston, 338 U.S. 829, 70 S.Ct. 80, 94 L.Ed. 504; Hart v. Knox County, 6 Cir., 171 F.2d 45. This change had been urged by the Judicial Conference, Sept.Sess.1944, 16; Sept.Sess.1945, 25.
. Healy v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 3 Cir., 181 F.2d 934, certiorari denied 340 U.S. 935, 71 S.Ct. 9-10, 95 L.Ed. 674; Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Mouat, 9 Cir., 184 F.2d 44, 48.
. Nor is the blow softened by describing opprobrionsly a colleague’s hard work as only “dictum.”
. The failure to cite this case seems all the stranger because it was a reversal of Dickinson v. Mulligan, 2 Cir., 173 F.2d 738, urged by the court itself because it held itself bound by what it considered the erroneous decision in Clark v. Taylor, 2 Cir., 163 F.2d 940. Actually, however, the latter case dealt with an order dismissing one of two defendants alternately charged and expressly excepted tile intervention situation with citations. 163 F.2d at page 943 and note 4- Of course one of the real advantages of the new rule is that it does away with the small distinctions of the earlier law.
. This is stated in the Supreme Court report "and made amply clear in the reports of the case below. Fed.Cas.No. 3509, 6 Ben. 408, and Fed.Cas.No.3510, 15 Blatch. 219.