A Massachusetts statute provides that, if an action be brought
in the state by a nonresident, he shall be held to answer any
action brought against him there by the defendant if the demands
are of such nature that judgment or execution in the one case may
be set off against judgment or execution in the other. The writ in
such cross-action may be served on the attorney of record for the
plaintiff in the "original action." A resident of Massachusetts
sued a resident of another state for breach of warranty in a sale
of fish oil and attached the drums, belonging to the nonresident,
in which the oil had been shipped. The nonresident then sued the
resident, in Massachusetts, for conversion of the drums, and
thereupon the resident, dismissing the attachment suit, again sued
the nonresident, on the same cause of action for breach of
warranty, and served the summons on the attorney for the
nonresident in the suit brought by the latter.
Held:
1: The service was good
in personam under the statute
mentioned. P.
283 U. S.
400.
2. The statute, by virtue of the Conformity Act, applies in the
federal court, and that court acquired jurisdiction over the
nonresident through service on his attorney of record.
Id.
3. This application of the state law is constitutional. P.
283 U. S. 401.
42 F.2d 362, 43
id. 99, reversed.
Certiorari, 282 U.S. 831, to review a judgment of the circuit
court of appeals which reversed the District Court in a suit on a
contract and dismissed the cause for want of jurisdiction.
See
also 35 F.2d 829.
Page 283 U. S. 399
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether under the Conformity
Act, U.S.Code, title 28, § 724, and the Massachusetts statute,
Gen.Laws, c. 227, §§ 2, 3, the District Court acquired
jurisdiction over the respondent. The Conformity Act provides
that
"the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding in
civil causes, . . . in the district courts shall conform, as near
as may be, to the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of
proceeding existing at the time in like causes in the courts of
record of the state within which such district courts are
held."
By the Massachusetts Laws, § 2,
supra,
"If an action is brought by a person not an inhabitant of the
commonwealth . . . , he shall be held to answer to any action
brought against him here by the defendant in the former action if
the demands are of such a nature that the judgment or execution in
the one case may be set off against the judgment or execution in
the other."
By § 3, "The writ in such cross-action may be served on the
attorney of record for the plaintiff in the original action." In
this case, the McNeal-Edwards Company, a corporation of Virginia,
sold to the Frank L. Young Company of Massachusetts 1,107 drums of
Menhaden oil, buyers to return the drums. The buyers later sued the
Virginia Company for breach of warranty of quality and attached the
drums, but the attachment was inadequate security for damages and
was the limit of the jurisdiction. Later the Virginia Corporation
sued the buyers for the conversion of the drums, and thereupon, at
a still later date, the buyers brought a second suit against the
Virginia Corporation for the same cause of action as before, had
the writ served upon the attorney of record in the Virginia
Corporation's suit, and discontinued its former action. The
petitioner, in short, is plainly within the Massachusetts statute,
for although there is some suggestion
Page 283 U. S. 400
that, by reason of the petitioner's former suit, the suit by the
Virginia Corporation was not the "original action" within § 3,
supra, we regard this as a mere quibble, and have no doubt
that the Massachusetts law applies if the Conformity Act brings it
in. The case was dismissed by the circuit court of appeals for want
of jurisdiction. 42 F.2d 362; 43 F.2d 99. A writ of certiorari was
granted by this Court.
We have to consider the Massachusetts law so far as it applies
to counterclaims arising out of the same contract that was sued
upon by the Virginia Company. If there should be any objections to
a wider application, they do not affect the respondent, and are not
open here.
Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U.
S. 152,
204 U. S. 160.
Thus limited, the law is only a slight extension of the doctrine of
recoupment recognized in Massachusetts apart from statute.
Home
Savings Bank v. Boston, 131 Mass. 277, 280. We take it that
there is no doubt that the Massachusetts principle would be applied
in the Courts of the United States,
Dushane v. Benedict,
120 U. S. 630, and
no greater doubt if the principle were established by a code.
Clement v. Field, 147 U. S. 467,
147 U. S. 475;
Pacific Express Co. v. Malin, 132 U.
S. 531;
Higgins v. McCrea, 116 U.
S. 671. Giving the counterclaim the formality of a
separate suit hardly is a sufficient reason for refusing to apply
the local policy and law.
Arkwright Mills v. Aultman &
Taylor Machinery Co., 128 F. 195, 196. Mr. Langdell observes
that there is no necessity for such ceremony in the nature of
things,
"for, the plaintiff being already in court
qua
plaintiff by his own voluntary act, it is reasonable to treat him
as being there for all the purposes for which justice to the
defendant requires his presence."
Langdell, Eq. Pleading, ch. 5, § 119. The characterization
of the contrary doctrine as pernicious by Mr. Justice Miller in
Partridge v. Phoenix Mutual
Ins. Co., 15 Wall. 573, is repeated in
Chicago
&
Page 283 U. S. 401
North Western Ry. Co. v. Lindell, 281 U. S.
14,
281 U. S. 17. We
see no reason to doubt the constitutionality of the present
application of the state law. The policy of it is embodied in
Equity Rule 30.
See Aldrich v. E. W. Blatchford & Co.,
175 Mass. 369, 56 N.E. 700.
The case is within the jurisdiction of the district court in all
other respects if the respondent has been served with process
effectively. We are of opinion that the service was good, and that
the case should not have been dismissed.
Judgment reversed.
