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7 Wash. 365

DeCorvet v. Dolan

Washington Supreme Court

Decided December 9, 1893

Washington Supreme Court · decided 1893-12-09

<p>SUMMONS — SERVICE BY PUBLICATION — SUFFICIENCY OF AFFIDAVIT— STATEMENT OF NATURE OF ACTION.</p> <p>Under §65, Laws 1877, p. 15, au affidavit stating that the defendant resides out of the territory is sufficient to authorize service by publication. (Stiles, J., dissents.)</p> <p>The cause and general nature of a foreclosure proceeding is sufficiently stated in a summons by publication when it specifies with particularity the note upon which the action is brought, and defendants are informed that the action is brought to foreclose a mortgage given to secure its payment.</p>

Relies on Forbes v. Hyde · Ricketson v. Richardson · McCracken v. . Flanagan

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1893-12-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently May 1939

4 state decisions

1018931900191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Stiles, J.

¶1(dissenting). I do not think that it was within the power of the" territorial legislature to enact the bald rule which the court in this case has enforced. A resident of the territory under the act of 1877 was entitled to personal service of summons issued in a case brought against him, or, at least, to have the summons left with some suitable person at his dwelling house or usual place of abode; and a non-resident was entitled to precisely the same treatment, if he could be found within the limits of the jurisdiction of the court.

¶2It is inseparable from any showing of non-residence by which a plaintiff seeks to entitle himself to a service by publication, that it be made to appear that, although the defendant is a non-resident, he cannot at the time of the proposed service be served personally. The mere fact that § 65 provided for an affidavit “stating'" that the defendant was a non-resident, in my judgment means no more than if it had used the word “showing.” It has been universally held that the mere allegation in an affidavit of this kind stating non-residence, or absence, or inability to make service, is a conclusion of law which is insufficient to base a substituted service upon. Ricketson v. Richardson, 26 Cal. 149; Forbes v. Hyde, 31 Cal. 342; Yolo County v. Knight, 70 Cal. 431 (11 Pac. Rep. 662); Braly v. Seaman, 30 Cal. 611; Thompson v. Shiawassee Circuit Judge, 54 Mich. 236 (19 N. W. Rep. 967); Harrington v. Loomis, 10 Minn. 366; Beach v. Beach, 6 Dak. 371 (43 N. W. 701); Carleton v. Carleton, 85 N. Y. 313; Kennedy v. N. Y Life Ins. & Trust Co., 32 Hun, 35; McDonald v. Cooper, 32 Fed. Rep. 748; Alderson v. Marshall, 7 Mont. 288 (16 Pac. Rep. 576); Neff v. Pennoyer, 3 Sawy. 274; Palmer v. McMaster, 33 Pac. Rep. 132; McCracken v. Flanagan, 127 N. Y. 493 (28 N. E. Rep. 385).

¶3A non-resident, within the terms of this statute as inter*370preted, might be one whose actual domicile was in the territory, at a place well known to the plaintiff, and who, if he had merely declared the intention of giving up his foreign residence, would be entitled to personal service.

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