Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/18

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runkle v. lamar ins. co.
11

district, by the service of a summons upon its agent, residing within this district.

The motion is based upon the seven hundred and thirty- ninth section of the Revised Statutes, which provides “that no civil suit shall be brought against an inhabitant of the United States in any other district than that of which he is an inhabtant, or in which he is found at the time of serving the writ.”

The statutes of the state of Ohio in regard to suits against foreign insurance companies provide, (section 3658:) “Any such company desiring to transact any business by an agent in this state shall file, with the superintendent, a written instrument, duly signed and sealed, authorizing any agent of the company in this state to acknowledge service of process in this state for and on behalf of the company, consenting that service of process, mesne or final, upon such agent, shall be taken and held to be as valid as if served upon the company according to the laws of this or any other state or country.”

Section 5030 provides “that in case of foreign insurance companies the suit may be brought in a county where the cause of action originated.”

And section 5046 provides that “when the defendant is a foreign corporation, having a managing agent in this state, the service may be upon such agent.”

It is contended by the defendant that being, under the decisions of the supreme court of the United States, for the purposes of suit, a citizen of the state creating it, its habitation is fixed in that state, and it cannot be “found” outside of that state so as to be served with a summons in any other district than that in the state, which created it, and that the statutes of Ohio cannot have the effect to change this rule of law; and in support of this proposition we were referred by learned counsel to Pomeroy v. N. Y. & N. H. R. 4 Blatch. 220; Myers v. Darse, 13 Blatch. 22. These authorities certainly do sustain the proposition, as well as does that of Stillwell et al. V. The Empire Fire Ins. Co. 4 Central Law Journal, 463, decided by Judge Dillon. A different view, however, seems to have been held by Justice McLean, in French v. The Lafayette