Messick v. Gordon
Messick v. Gordon
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This is an appeal from the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Cumberland County, sustaining the preliminary objection of defendant, William J. Gordon, attacking the jurisdiction of the court over his person. The complaint alleged that the defendant, appellee here, a resident of the State of Virginia, was a patron of the plaintiff’s motor lodge where he occupied a room, which, through appellee’s negligence, caught fire and resulted in extensive damages. Service on appellee was made under Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 2079(a) by mailing registered letters to the Secretary of the Commonwealth and to appellee at his last known address. Appellee filed a preliminary objection attacking the Pennsylvania court’s jurisdiction over his person. That objection was sustained and this appeal followed.
Although no motion to quash was filed, this Court, sua sponte, raised the question of whether the case was properly before us. We conclude that it is. The Act of March 5, 1925, P. L. 23, §1, 12 P.S. §672, provides as follows: “Whenever in any proceeding at law or in equity the question of jurisdiction over the defendant or of the cause of action for which suit is brought is raised in the court of first instance, it shall be preliminarily determined by the court upon the pleadings or with depositions, as the case may require; and the decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court or the Superior Court, as in cases of final judgments.”
Section 3 of the same act, 12 P.S. §674, provides that the appeal allowed in §1 must be taken and per
In Mauser v. Mauser, cited above, this Court held that the Act of 1925 did not apply to plaintiff’s appeal from a final decision dismissing a bill in equity. Such a result should be obvious from the consequences stated in §3 for failure to comply with the time limitation of the Act: “A failure to appeal within the time specified will be deemed a waiver of all objections to jurisdiction over the defendant personally.” Clearly this can apply only to an appeal by the defendant and not to an appeal by the plaintiff. We can thus pass on the issue raised by the preliminary objection.
Appellant contends that the substituted service on appellee is valid under the provisions of §1 of the Act of July 2, 1937, P. L. 2747, 12 P.S. §331: “From and after the passage of this act, any nonresident of this Commonwealth being the owner, tenant, or user, of
We hold that appellee was not a “user” of the real estate under §331 and that substituted service under Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 2079(c) was thus improper.
The order of the court below sustaining appellee’s preliminary objection attacking the jurisdiction over his person is affirmed.
In fact, in' dictum in Betcher, supra, we expressed our doubt that even current standards of due process permitted sucb a situation.
Apparently, legislatures have been erring too much on the side of safety. See the discussion, 7 Duq. L. Rev. 138, 143 (1968) of the “due process gap”, which refers to the failure of legislatures to pass long-arm statutes as broad as due process permits.
Dissenting Opinion
Dissenting Opinion by
The majority correctly reaffirms this Court’s holding in Betcher v. Hay-Roe, 429 Pa. 371, 240 A. 2d 501 (1968), that under the provisions of section 1 of the Act of July 2,1937, P. L. 2747, 12 P.S. §331, “no causal connection was needed between the real estate and the accident.” The majority is also correct when it states “it was unnecessary to circumscribe the ordinary meaning of the word ‘involved’ [by requiring a causal connection] because §331 is self-limiting, permitting extraterritorial service only upon the ‘owner, tenant or user’ of real estate.” (Emphasis supplied.)
However, 1 believe the majority is incorrect when it argues that the self-limiting feature would evaporate if the terms of §331 were applied to the appellee in this action. The self-limiting feature “owner, tenant or user” must apply to one who rents a motel room, even for one night, if all of the words are to be given meaning. It appears to me that appellee was both a
This Court has defined “use” to be “the right to enjoy, hold or occupy and have the fruits thereof.” Philadelphia v. Merchant & Evans Co., 296 Pa. 126, 131, 145 Atl. 706, 707 (1929). A “user” must be one, therefore, who has these rights; no one would deny that appellee had the right to hold, occupy and enjoy this motel room.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Messick, Appellant, v. Gordon
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