123 Tenn. 428 | Tenn. | 1910
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an original attachment suit begun by the complainant in -the chancery court of Hamilton county against the defendant to recover a large indebtedness alleged to be due on open account. The ground set up in the bill for the attachment was that the defendant was a corporation organized under the laws of Alabama, and a nonresident of this State. A . writ of attachment was issued, which, on the same day, was levied on the property of the defendant. Immediately thereafter the defendant executed a replevy bond and regained possession of the property levied on. Subsequent thereto the defendant filed a plea in abatement in the words and figures following: “The defendant,
The proof showing the averments of defendant’s plea to he true in fact, on the hearing the chancellor decreed that the attachment was wrongfully sued out, and dismissed the hill, in so far as it prayed for the writ; and, also, that complainant was entitled to recovery of defendant, but not in the full amount claimed. To ascertain the real indebtedness due, a reference ivas ordered. From this decree complainant has appealed to this court.
The first assignment of error made by complainant is to the action of the chancellor in decreeing the attachment Amid and of no effect.
The counsel of complainant in their printed argument have presented a carefully prepared historic review of tlie statutes of the State, in which is shown the gradual development of the law of attachment, beginning with chapter 43 of the Acts of 1835-36. We deem it unnecessary to follow this review, inasmuch as the statutes regulating the issue of a general attachment were brought forAArard into section 3455 of the Code of 1858 (section 5211, Shannon’s Code). Among the grounds upon which a writ of attachment may be had is that “the debtor or defendant resides out of the State.” Unquestionably, under this section, a.s could
In the cases provided for in the Code, “the attachment and publication are in lien of personal service,” while sections 2831 to 2833 of the Code of 1858 (sections 4539-4541, Shannon’s Code) provide for personal service on officers or agents of corporations, and apply to foreign as well as domestic corporations. Railroad v. Walker, 9 Lea, 475; Peters v. Neely, 16 Lea, 275; Holland v. Railroad Co., 16 Lea, 414.
Up to 1.877, as a matter of comity, and without special legislation, foreign corporations were admitted to do business in this State. By chapter 31 of the Acts of that year the legislature made a radical departure, by affixing terms and conditions to their entry into Tennessee for the purpose of doing business, or acquiring or disposing of real estate, but confined the scope of the act to foreign corporations organized for mining and manufacturing purposes. By the first section of this act it is provided “that corporations chartered or or»
Thus it will be seen that the first section provides in terms that corporations for whose benefit the act was intended; taking advantage of it, “might become incorporated in this State” upon the terms and conditions and in the manner prescribed; while the second section sets out the terms and conditions on which and' the manner in which this may be done; and the third in ex
Thus stood our legislation as to foreign corporations until the passage of the statute in the year 1891, chapter 122 of the Session Acts of the general assembly of that year. This act, as its caption declared, was amend-atory of the act of 1877. By its first section it was enacted that chapter 31 of the Acts of 1877 be so enlarged that its provision should apply to all foreign corporations organized “for any purpose whatever.” The second section, in substance, repeats the terms, conditions, etc., as prescribed by the act of 1877 for the entry of such corporations into the State; the third section makes it unlawful, and fixes a penalty, for any such corporation to do, or attempt to do, business or acquire property in this State without complying with the terms prescribed. The fourth is in the following words: “When a corporation complies with the provisions of this act, it shall then be, to all intents and purposes, a domestic corporation, and may sue and be sued in the courts of this State, and is subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of the State just as though it were created under the laws of the State.”
Thus, it will be seen the legislature by this amenda-tory act opened the door to all foreign corporations and declared that any such corporation, coming into the State and complying with these statutory requirements, shall become “to all intents and purposes a domestic corporation.” Conceding the power of the legislature to pass such statutes, it would be difficult to
Coming now to the act of 1895, chapter' 81 of the published Acts of that year, we find from its caption that it was intended to amend' sections 2, 3, and 4 of chapter 122 of the Session Acts of 1891. This statute, so far as it is pertinent to this controversy, is as follows :
“Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of the State of Tennessee, that section 2 of an act passed March 21, 1891, being chapter 122 of said Acts, be so amended as to read' as follows: That each and every corporation created or organized under and by virtue of any government other than of the State, for any purpose whatever, desiring to own property or carry on business in this State of any kind or character, shall firsjt file in the office of secretary of State a copy of its charter.’ ”
“Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, that section 4 of said act, passed March 21, 1891, be so amended as to read as follows: ‘That when a corporation complies with the provisions of this, act said corporation may then sue and be sued in the courts of this State, and shall be subject to ,the jurisdiction of this State as fnlly as if created under the laws of the State of Tennessee.’ ”
It will be noted that the difference between this act and that amended is that under the first section of the Act of 1895 the foreign corporation entering the State to do business is sufficiently equipped upon filing an authenticated copy of its' charter with the secretary of
It- is argued that the omission of this phrase indicates the purpose of the legislature to abandon the policy of domesticating a foreign complying corporation, and that as a matter of law this was accomplished. As to the first of these propositions, it may be said that it is difficult to discover such purpose, in the language that, when such a corporation complied with the provisions of the act, “it shall be subject to the jurisdiction of this State as fully as if it were created under the laws of Tennessee.” Should we grant (which we do not), however, that, this was its purpose, we are satisfied it was not accomplished.
We have already seen that ebapter 122 of the Acts of 1891 was amendatory of chapter 31 of the Session Acts of 1877, and chapter '81 of the Acts of 1895 of chapter 122 of those of 1891. It is well settled that “an amendment of a statute by a subsequent act operates precisely as if the subject-matter of the amendment had been incorporated in the prior act at the time, so far as regards any action after the amendment is made.” Black on Interpretation of Laws, p. 357, and cases cited.
It is insisted by complainant that this question must be answered in the affirmative. The argument of its counsel is that section 3 of the act of 1895 is a composite of section 3 of the act of 1877 and section 4 of the act of 1891, and takes the place of both, and is today the whole law on this branch of the subject. This insistence is rested on the familiar rule that, when two distinct enactments cover -the same subject-matter, the last act will be held to repeal by implication the prior. Many cases in our reports illustrate and apply this rule, among which are the Druggist Cases, 85 Tenn., 449, 3 S. W., 490; Terrell v. State, 86 Tenn., 523, 8 S. W., 212; Maxwell v. Stuart, 99 Tenn., 409, 42 S. W., 34. However, it is equally well settled that repeals by implication are not favored, and the former act will not
Another rule of interpretation, which is but a corollary of that just stated, .grows out of the duty of the courts to harmonize the laws constituting a system, if this be possible. Mr. Black, in his work already referred to, in a' headnote to section 32, dealing with this subject, lays it down that “statutes should be construed, if possible, so as to give effect to all their clauses and provisions; and each statute should receive such a construction as will make it harmonize with the preexisting body of the law.”
In other words, every later statute, forming part of a system such as has been created by the legislature of this State, tvith regard to the entry of foreign corporations, their domestication, and control, beginning with that of 1877, is to be considered with reference to the preexisting body of that law to which it is added and of which it forms a part. To do otherwise is to miss the legislative intent, and possibly, do violence to it.
Having announced these general rules, we will, in their light, briefly come to the examination of the acts in question. In the first place, there is no express
Before discussing the power of the State to domesticate a foreign corporation and the effect of our legislation on that subject, we deem it proper to refer to the insistence of defendant’s counsel that chapter 122 of the Acts of 1891 is unconstitutional because violative of section 17 of article 2 of our' constitution. In section 5 of this statute it is provided that: “When such corporation (foreign complying) has no agent in this State upon whom process may be served, . . . then it may be proceeded against by an attachment . . .. and publication.” It is argued that there is nothing in the caption of the amendatory act, or of the act amended, to give notice that such a provision would be found in the body of the act in question. The caption of the* act of 1877 is as follows: “An act to declare the terms on which foreign corporations, organized for mining and manufacturing purposes may carry on their business, and purchase, hold and convey, real and personal property in this State.” If the provision, just set out above,
We do not deem it necessary, elaborately, to consider this contention, as we think it disposed of by the principle announced by Judge Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Limitations, that “the generality of the title is no objection to it, so long as it is not made a cover to. legislation incongruous in itself and which by no fair intendment can be considered as having a necessary or proper connection” — a principle applied by this court in cases running through many, of our reports, among which are Cannon v. Mathes, 8 Heisk., 504; Frazier v. Railway Co., 88 Tenn., 138, 12 S. W., 537; Ryan v. Terminal Co., 102 Tenn., 111, 50 S. W., 744, 45 L. R.
A further insistence of complainant is that a corporation can have, in legal contemplation, but one place of residence, and that within the territory of its creation. Putting this insistence into'another form, it is said that a corporation must dwell in the place of its creation and cannot migrate to another sovereignty.
An opposite view was taken and enforced in Young v. South Tredegar Iron Co., 85 Tenn., 189, 2 S. W., 202, 4 Am. St. Rep., 752. The facts of that case are too familiar to be repeated here. It is sufficient to say that the controversy was over shares of stock levied on and Sold by an attaching creditor in one of the courts in this State, in a corporation chartered by the State of Missouri, but found by the court, after complying with the provisions of chapter 81 of the Acts of 1877, carrying on business of manufacturing, iron in this State, with its books, officers, and agents here and, in fact, “with its whole tangible and ponderable substance in Tennessee-’ within the jurisdiction of that court.
This court recognized the fiction often announced in reporting cases and in test-books that “a corporation dwells only in the State of its creation and cannot migrate therefrom,” but at the same time "quoted with approval from Railroad v. Harris, 12 Wall., 82 (20 L. Ed., 354), the following: “Nor db we seé any reason why one State may not make a corporation of another State, as there organized and conducted, a corporation of its own, quo ad hoc any property within its
Following the clear intimation of that opinion, and upon reasoning we think unanswerable, it was held by this conrt that “the legislation (the act of 1877) by which the corporations of other States are made corporations of this State is clearly within legislative power,” and that having complied with the provisions of the act, and in view of its ownership of property, and the other evidences, hereinbefore set out, of its having domesticated itself, that “the fiction that the corporate entity is in Missouri is overthrown by the fact that it is likewise a dorixestic corporation and stands in all particulars as any other person.” This case has been often referred to, and the soundness of its conclusion, when applied to statutes such as ours, and under the conditions shown existing in that case, or in the present, has nowhere, so far as we have discovered, been questioned. It has been often referred to by this court in opinions published and unpublished. It stands as a law of this State today unmodified by any subsequent holding of this court.
The principle announced in that case has been recognized by the supreme court of the United States in
In Thompson on Corporations (2 Ed.), vol. 5, sec. 6629, the author says: “It is well settled that a corporation of one State may be made a corporation of another State by the legislature of that State, in regard to property and acts within its territorial jurisdiction, but in order to do so the language of the statute must
As a matter of course, as is remarked by the author, in the paragraph following that just quoted, “the mere grant to a foreign corporation of the right to hold property, or do business in the State, does not make it a domestic corporation.. Neither is domestication accomplished by the designation by the corporation of an agent or attorney upon whom process may be served; nor by filing its charter with the secretary of State, or other designated State officer; nor by the occupancy of premises and the payment of taxes on its property in the domestic State; nor by the purchase or lease of the property of a domestic corporation. Notwithstanding these acts, the corporations are still subject to attachment as foreign corporations. . . .” Such a grant is but the legislative expression of comity without a change of corporate status, and such acts are entirely consistent with the fact that in all respects it is still a foreign corporation. It requires, in other words, such language as is found in our statute to domesticate it. The North Carolina statute is very similar to ours, in that it permits a foreign corporation to become a domestic corporation by filing with the secretary of State copies of the charter of the corporation and its by-laws
We have examined many of the authorities relied on by complainant to sustain his insistence that it is beyond legislative power to domesticate a foreign corporation, and find they involve a construction of statutes dissimilar from ours, or else controversies impertinent to that here presented. Even had it been found that these cases, or any considerable number of them, support the contention of complainant, we would not be disposed to follow them, in view of the clearly announced principle to the contrary found in the South Tredagar Iron Company Case, fortified, as it is, by the authority of the supreme court of the United States. It would, therefore, unnecessarily consume time, which cannot be afforded, and occupy space altogether unwarranted in this opinion, to pass these cases in review.
■ It is further contended by the complainant that, even if wrong in the insistence just disposed of, by the "execution of the replevy bond and the recaption by the defendant of the attached property, the attachment, having served its purpose of impounding the property, was discharged, and defendant and surety became liable, under .the statute and by the terms of the bond, for .such decree as might be rendered against the defendant. This claim is prematurely made, and we therefore inti
From our examination, we think the chancellor was right in referring the case to the clerk and master, and his decree is in all things affirmed.