Western Life Indemnity Co. of Ill. v. Rupp

Citations

• 235 U.S. 261
• 35 S. Ct. 37
• 59 L. Ed. 220
• 1914 U.S. LEXIS 1020

Syllabus

<p>A State may prescribe that a voluntary special appearance in one of its courts, even for the purpose.of objecting to the jurisdiction, shall be deemed a general appearance, without violating the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.</p> <p>In the Federal courts a defendant may appear specially to insist upon the illegality of service, and if overruled does not waive his objections by answering to the merits, Davidson Marble Co. v. Gibson, 213 U. S. 10, but the States may, as-Kentucky has, establish a different rule, and nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment prevents them from so doing.</p> <p>The due process provision of the Fourteenth Amendment has regard not to matters of form but to substance of right.</p> <p>While there is a rule in Kentucky that appearance in the appellate court operates as a submission to the jurisdiction so as to dispense with service of process, the rights of the defendant in a case where plaintiff appeals are safeguarded by his right to a-moss-appeal on this or any other objection.</p> <p>While a non-resident, against whom a personal action is instituted in a state court without personal service within the jurisdiction, may ignore the proceeding as wholly ineffective and set up its invalidity when an attempt is made to take his property thereunder, if he wishes to contest the validity of the proceeding in advance in the courts of the State he must enter the courts subject to the rules as to submitting to the’ jurisdiction.</p> <p>It. is not unreasonable for a State to prescribe such rules of procedure in regard to special appearances in its courts as will prevent a defendant from attempting to obtain a binding adjudication on the merits in his favor through the exercise of the court’s jurisdiction, while depriving the plaintiff of the possibility of success by reserving an objection to the jurisdiction of the court.</p> <p>Where, in a state court, the validity of an act of the legislature of another State is not in question* and