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Vol. I.]

GALPIN v. PAGE.

[No. 12.

personal service before the defendant could be personally bound by any judgment rendered."

In Cooper v. Reynolds, 10 Wall. 308, similar doctrines are laid down. by the supreme court of the United States. In that case, the plaintiff had sued the defendants in Tennessee for false imprisonment, and upon affidavit that none of them were to be found in his county, sued out a writ of attachment against their property. Publication was ordered by the court, notifying them to appear and plead, answer or demur, or that the suit would be taken as confessed, and proceeded in ex parte as to them. Publication was had, and the defendants having made default, judgment was entered against them, and the attached property was sold under it. The purchaser having been put into possession, the original owner brought ejectment for the premises. In considering the character of the attachment suit, the court, speaking through Mr. Justice Miller, said: "Its essential purpose or nature is to establish, by the judgment of the court, a demand against the defendant, and to subject his property, lying within the territorial jurisdiction of the court, to the payment of that demand.

"But the plaintiff is met at the commencement of his proceedings by the fact that the defendant is not within that territorial jurisdiction, and cannot be served with any process by which he can be brought personally within the power of the court. For this difficulty the statute has provided a remedy. It says that, upon affidavit being made of that fact, a writ of attachment may be issued and levied on any of the defendant's property, and a publication may be made warning him to appear, and that thereafter the court may proceed in the case, whether he appears or not.

"If the defendant appears, the cause becomes mainly a suit in personam, with the added incident that the property attached remains liable, under the control of the court, to answer to any demand which may be established against the defendant by the final judgment of the court. But if there is no appearance of the defendant, and no service of process on him, the case becomes, in its essential nature, a proceeding in rem, the only effect of which is to subject the property attached to the payment of the demand which the court may find to be due to the plaintiff.

"That such is the nature of this proceeding in this latter class of cases is clearly evinced by two well established propositions: first, the judgment of the court, though in form a personal judgment against the defendant, has no effect beyond the property attached in that suit. No general execution can be issued for any balance unpaid after the attached property is exhausted. No suit can be maintained on such a judgment in the same court or in any other; nor can it be used as evidence in any other proceeding not affecting the attached property; nor could the costs in that proceeding be collected of defendant out of any other property than that attached in the suit. Second, the court, in such a suit, cannot proceed unless the officer finds some property of defendant on which to levy the writ of attachment. A return, that none can be found, is the end of the case, and deprives the court of further jurisdiction, though the publication may have been duly made and proven in court."

The writer of the present opinion thought some of the objections taken to the preliminary proceedings in the attachment suit referred to were well founded, and dissented from the judgment of the court; but in the

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doctrine laid down in the above citation he always has concurred. It is, in our judgment, the true doctrine, and the only doctrine which is consistent with any just protection to the citizens of other states. Such is the constant intercourse between citizens of different states at the present time that the greatest insecurity to property would exist, if purely personal judgments obtained ex parte, without personal citation, upon mere publication of notice, which, in the great majority of cases, would never be seen by the parties interested, could be made available for the seizure of property afterwards brought within the state. That law would be intolerable, if valid, which would permit citizens of another state to come into this state and recover personal judgments for all sorts of torts and contracts, upon mere service by publication against citizens of different states who have never been within the state or possessed any property therein. If such judgments could be upheld, they would become the frequent instruments of fraud in the hands of the unscrupulous, and be sprung on the property of the unsuspecting defendants when the transactions giving rise to the judgments have passed from their memory, or the evidence respecting the transactions has perished. We do not think it within the competency of the legislature to invest its tribunals with authority having any such reach and force; certainly no presumption in favor of their jurisdiction can arise when a judgment of this character is produced against a non-resident who has never been within the state, and did not appear to the action. Hare & Wallace's Notes to Smith's Leading Cases, vol. 1, p. 838; Picquet v. Swan, 5 Mason, 535; Monroe v. Douglass, 4 Sand. Ch. 182.

The second position laid down in Hahn v. Kelly requires us to consider what papers and proceedings constitute the record of a court of general jurisdiction, which may be looked into when a judgment of that court rendered against a person without the territorial limits of the court, upon constructive service by publication, is assailed collaterally for want of jurisdiction. In that case it is held, that such record consists only of the papers and proceedings which compose what is designated in the Code of Procedure as the judgment roll; and that it need not contain the affidavit of the party and the order of the court, without which constructive service of the summons by publication cannot be made.

The statute authorizing constructive service by publication of summons upon non-resident and absent parties requires certain facts to be presented by affidavit to the court in which the action is pending, or to a judge thereof, or to a county judge. If it appear upon such presentation to the satisfaction of the court or judge that the facts exist, an order may be made for the publication of the summons, and such order must prescribe the period and designate the paper in which the publication is to be made; and if the residence of the defendant be known, the order must also direct a copy of the summons and complaint to be forthwith deposited in the post-office, directed to him at his place of residence. The service of the summons is deemed complete at the expiration of the time prescribed by the order for publication."

The statute, in the same title which treats of the manner of commencing civil actions, after stating the manner in which service shall be made in case of personal service and in case of service by publication, provides in

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sections almost immediately following that "Proof of the service of summons shall be as follows: 1. If served by the sheriff, his certificate thereof; 2. If served by any other person, his affidavit thereof; 3. In case of publication, the affidavit of the printer or his foreman or principal clerk, showing the same; and an affidavit of a deposit of a copy of the summons in the post-office, if the same has been deposited.'

In another part of the same statute, in a different title and chapter, treating of a different subject, "the manner of giving and entering judg ment," it is provided that immediately after entering the judgment, in case the complaint be not answered, the clerk shall attach together the summons with the affidavit or proof of service, and the complaint with a memorandum indorsed thereon, that the default of the defendant in not answering was entered, and a copy of the judgment; and that these papers shall constitute the judgment roll in the case.

Now, it is evident that the language of the statute in the first title mentioned, declaring what shall be proof of service of the summons, must be limited to the action of the persons making the service or publication, of which the sections immediately preceding in the same title speak; as if the language were as follows: "Proof of the service of summons by the sheriff or other person, or by a publisher of a newspaper, as above provided, shall be as follows." The obvious meaning intended is, that the proof of service, which the parties performing the particular duty prescribed must furnish, shall be the certificate or affidavit designated. It does not mean that such certificate or affidavit shall be all that is required on the subject of service, but only all that is required of those particular persons. Any other construction would lead to this absurd result, that an affidavit could be used to establish conclusively a fact to which it makes no reference. Publication of a summons in a newspaper is not service of the summons, nor is an affidavit of such publication proof of service. The publication, to be of any avail, must be in a paper designated and for the period prescribed by the order of the court or judge. The terms of such order must, therefore, be connected with the affidavit, or the proof will amount to nothing. The affidavit by itself is only a portion of the proof, a solitary link in the chain required. The printer is not supposed to know anything of the order, and is not called upon even to refer to it in his affidavit.

When, therefore, the record of the judgment comes to be made up, it must necessarily include the order of the court, or it will disclose no proof of service. And when the statute requires the clerk to attach with other papers the proof of service, it means not merely the affidavit which the publisher may furnish as part of such proof, but the order also, without which the affidavit establishes nothing. It is in giving to the provision, declaring the proof which the officer or person making personal service or the printer publishing the summons shall furnish of their acts, the effect of a declaration that no other proof of the service was necessary, that error in our judgment was committed in Hahn v. Kelly.

That the ruling in that case left the judgment roll a defective and imperfect record seems to have been felt by the court, for it says: "In our judgment, it would have added to the completeness of the record to have made the proof of service by publication include, also, the affidavit of the

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party, and the order of the court directing publication to be made, for, in point of law, they constitute a part of the mode; but the legislature has not seen proper to do so, and we can no more add to their will than we can take from it."

For the reasons we have stated, we do not admit that the statute sanctions any such defective record; but, on the contrary, we are clear that, properly construed, it requires full proof of the jurisdictional facts to be incorporated into the judgment roll.

If, however, we are mistaken, and the order, which is the foundation of and the only authority for the publication, is no part of such roll, or, if not mistaken, we are bound to accept as correct the construction of the statute given by the state court, then inquiry into the jurisdiction of the court cannot be limited, on a collateral attack, to the contents of the roll. The remaining record of the proceedings would be of equal authority and verity, and could be equally relied upon. The record at common law, which imported absolute verity, was a history of all the acts and proceedings in the action, from its initiation to final judgment, enrolled upon parchment for a perpetual memorial and testimony. These rolls were called records of the court, and were, in the language of Blackstone, "of such high and supereminent authority, that their truth was not to be called in question." A record, professedly embracing only a portion of such acts and proceedings cannot be entitled to similar implicit credit, and cannot equally close the door against collateral attack. The use of the same designation to indicate a different collection of acts and proceedings cannot, of course, carry with it the same import. If the legislature should declare that only that portion of the proceedings in an action which constitutes the judgment itself should be enrolled, it would not be any less illogical to insist that to that enrolment parties should be confined when questioning the jurisdiction of the court, than it is that they shall be confined to any other defective record of the proceedings in the

action.

When constructive service by publication in a personal action is authorized by statute in place of personal citation, the rule prevailing in all courts is, that the statute must be strictly pursued. We are not aware that this doctrine has been denied in any state court. It has been repeatedly asserted by the supreme court of this state in the most emphatic manner. "A contrary course," said that court in Jordan v. Giblin, in 1859, "would encourage fraud and lead to oppression." 12 Cal. 100. "A failure to carry out the rule thus prescribed," said the court, speaking through Mr. Justice Sanderson, in Ricketson v. Richardson, 26 Cal. 149, "in any particular, is fatal where it is not cured by an appearance." In Forbes v. Hyde, 31 Cal. 342, decided in 1866, the same doctrine is recognized. There the objection to the insufficiency of an affidavit made to obtain an order of publication was allowed on a collateral attack to the judgment under which the plaintiff claimed title in ejectment. As the statute only requires certain facts to appear by affidavit to the satisfaction of the court or judge, we should be inclined, in the absence of this decision, to hold that defects in the affidavit could be taken advantage of only on appeal, and could not be urged collaterally. We cite the case, however, not only because it reiterates the rule of strict construction, but because of

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the special reason it gives for its enforcement in this state, in the observation that there is, probably, "no state in which so many have waited and are still waiting for their adversaries to depart, in order that suit may be brought and judgment obtained against them on publication without actual notice." "It may be important," continues Mr. Justice Sawyer, in delivering the unanimous opinion of the court, "to the interests of those who suppose they have acquired rights under this class of judgments, that they should be upheld. But it is equally important that the interests of parties, who have only been constructively served with process, and who, in many instances, have had no actual notice till they have been condemned unheard, should be protected. If a judgment is void for want of jurisdiction, all those who have acquired interests under it have done so in full view of the condition of the record; while, on the other hand, a defendant is liable to have an unjust judgment rendered against him without any knowledge of the pendency of the action till it is too late to protect himself. An appeal is no adequate remedy where a party has no notice; for the time to appeal is very brief, and may expire before actual notice is obtained. In the language of the court in Smith v. Rice, 11 Mass. 512, "the very grievance complained of is, that the party had no notice of the pending of the cause, and of course no opportunity to appeal."

Now, if the rule in Hahn v. Kelly be correct, we have this singular result that whilst the statute must be strictly followed before jurisdiction can be acquired over the person, a party against whom a judgment is rendered is precluded from examining the proceedings, by which alone it can be seen whether the statute has been followed. In other words, the court says no jurisdiction is acquired by the court if the requirements of the statute be not pursued, but the record of the proceedings taken shall always be a closed book.

If the order of the court is no part of the judgment roll it cannot be brought before the court on appeal, unless a statement or bill of exceptions be made up; and either of these proceedings supposes the presence of the parties or counsel. If any other direct proceedings are taken they might result in vacating the judgment; but under the ruling in the case cited, the record being regular on its face, the purchaser, if a third party, would be protected, and the wronged defendant be left to the doubtful chances of recovering the value of his property by action against the plaintiff.

From the examination we have thus been able to give to the case of Hahn v. Kelly, we do not find in it sufficient reasons to depart from the old and well established rules formerly recognized in the supreme court of the state, the observance of which, as we are more and more impressed every day, is essential to the protection of the rights of all citizens, whether resident or non-resident of the state.

The proceedings for constructive service by publication which the statute authorizes are as stated by Mr. Justice Sanderson in the case of Ricketson v. Richardson, supra, "in derogation of the common law;" that is, they are not in accordance with the course of the common law.

It was the boast of that law that it condemned no one in his person or his property without his day in court. That there must be citation before hearing, and hearing, or opportunity of being heard, before judgment,

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