Settlemier v. Sullivan/Opinion of the Court

by Stephen Johnson Field

United States Supreme Court

97 U.S. 444

Settlemier  v.  Sullivan

If the certificate of the sheriff were the only document in the record referring to the service of the complaint and notice, there would be no doubt as to the correctness of the ruling of the court below. Service upon the wife of the defendant was not service upon him. No theoretical unity of husband and wife can make service upon one equivalent to service upon the other. Personal citation to the defendant, or his voluntary appearance, is the essential preliminary to a purely personal judgment. The statute of the State in force at the time required service in cases other than those brought against corporations, or persons laboring under some disability, as minors, or as being of unsound mind, to be made by delivering a copy to the defendant personally; or, if he could not be found, to some white person of his family above the age of fourteen years, at his dwelling-house or usual place of abode. If it be admitted that substituted service of this kind upon some other member of the family is sufficient to give the court jurisdiction to render a personal judgment against its head, binding him to the payment of money or damages, it can only be where the condition upon which such service is permissible is shown to exist. The inability of the officer to find the defendant was not a fact to be inferred, but a fact to be affirmatively stated in his return. The substituted service in actions purely in personam was a departure from the rule of the common law, and the authority for it, if it could be allowed at all, must have been strictly followed.

Such we find to be the ruling of the Supreme Court of Oregon. In Trullenger v. Todd (5 Oreg. 39), judgment was entered by default for want of an answer by the clerk, in vacation, under the act of 1868, upon a certificate of the sheriff that he had served the summons upon the defendant 'by delivering a copy thereof to a person of the family above the age of fourteen years, at the dwelling-house or place of abode of the defendant;' and the court held the certificate insufficient to authorize the entry of judgment in not containing the fact that he defendant could not be found. The statute, so far as the manner of service was concerned, was similar to that of 1861, a summons being substituted for the notice. 'The statute,' said the court, 'in providing how service shall be made, evidently implies that when a summons is placed in the hands of an officer for service, that he will use ordinary diligence, at least, to find the party against whom the summons is issued, in order that he may make personal service upon him; but after using ordinary diligence, if he should fail to find such party, constructive service may be made; and when such service is made, the certificate should contain the fact that the party could not be found.' The court having thus held the judgment void, the only question left for its determination was whether it could entertain an appeal from it, as a void judgment could be disregarded and treated as a nullity whenever any right was claimed under it, whether set aside or not. It maintained the appeal solely for the purpose of reversing the judgment and thus purging its records.

Here it is contended that the recital in the entry of the default of the defendant in the case in the State court, 'that, although duly served with process, he did not come, but made default,' is evidence that due service on him was made, notwithstanding the return of the sheriff, and supplies its omission. But the answer is, that the recital must be read in connection with that part of the record which gives the official evidence prescribed by statute. This evidence must prevail over the recital, as the latter, in the absence of an averment to the contrary, the record being complete, can only be considered as referring to the former.

We do not question the doctrine that a court of general jurisdiction acting within the scope of its authority-that is, within the boundaries which the law assigns to it with respect to subjects and persons-is presumed to act rightly and to have jurisdiction to render the judgment it pronounces, until the contrary appears. But this presumption can only arise with respect to jurisdictional facts, concerning which the record is silent. It cannot be indulged when the evidence respecting the facts is stated, or averments respecting them are made. If the record is silent with respect to any fact which must have been established before the court could have rightly acted, it will be presumed that such fact was properly brought to its knowledge. But if the record give the evidence or make an averment with respect to a jurisdictional fact, it will be taken to speak the truth, and the whole truth, in that regard; and no presumption will be allowed that other and different evidence was produced, or that the fact was otherwise than as averred. 'If, for example,' to give an illustration from the case of Galpin v. v. Page (18 Wall. 366), 'it appears from the return of the officer or the proof of service contained in the record that the summons was served at a particular place, and there is no averment of any other service, it will not be presumed that service was also made at another and different place; or if it appear in like manner that the service was made upon a person other than the defendant, it will not be presumed, in the silence of the record, that it was made upon the defendant also.'

We are of opinion that the principle here stated applies in this case. The record from the State court showed service upon the wife of the defendant in that case, and not upon the defendant; and in the absence of any finding of the court that other service was made, or the finding of a fact from which other service must necessarily be inferred, none will be presumed. Other service will not be presumed from its assumption in a recital in the entry of a default. It follows that the judgment of the court below must be affirmed; and it is

So ordered.

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY, with whom concurred MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE and MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.

Notes