{
  "id": 8597287,
  "name": "WILLIAM TINKER v. RICE MOTORS, Inc.",
  "name_abbreviation": "Tinker v. Rice Motors, Inc.",
  "decision_date": "1929-12-11",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "73",
  "last_page": "75",
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    "id": 9292,
    "name": "Supreme Court of North Carolina"
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    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
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      "cite": "139 N. C., 299",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T19:53:28.956258+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "WILLIAM TINKER v. RICE MOTORS, Inc."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "AdaMs, J.\nThis is a motion to set aside tbe purported service of process and to dismiss tbe action. Tbe motion was allowed upon tbe following facts, wbicb were found by tbe trial j\u2019udge.\nThe plaintiff was indebted to tbe defendant on certain notes; also on agreements for tbe conditional sale of personal property. In January, 1929, J. E. Pierce, upon whom process in tbe present action was served, came to Buncombe County and made an effort to collect tbe amount due by tbe plaintiff to tbe defendant. Failing to mate tbe collection be caused warrants to be issued charging the plaintiff with tbe felonious trading in Tennessee of property be did not own and with feloniously removing from Tennessee personal property tbe title to wbicb bad been retained, in violation of tbe laws of tbat State, and with being a fugitive from justice. After bis arrest under these warrants tbe plaintiff sued out a writ of habeas corpus and was released from custody. He tben brought an action against the defendant for false imprisonment, abuse of process, and malicious prosecution, and caused process to be served on J. E. Pierce, who was the bookkeeper of the nonresident defendant, but not an officer or a stockholder or a general agent of the defendant or clothed with authority generally to make collections for the defendant. Pierce\u2019s sole authority in North Carolina and his sole business here were to collect the defendant\u2019s claim against the plaintiff and to take such legal action as was necessary to achieve this purpose. He was a witness neither in the trial before the justice of the peace nor upon the return of the writ of habeas corpus. The findings are not subject to review in this Court. Higgs v. Sperry, 139 N. C., 299.\nUpon these facts it was adjudged that Pierce was not an agent upon whom process could be served in an action against the defendant, and that the action be dismissed.\nIt will be observed that the question is not whether \u25a0 the defendant, while in North Carolina, was immune from the service of process in an action against him personally, but whether service upon him subjected the defendant to the jurisdiction of the court in which the plaintiff instituted his action.\nThe first paragraph of C. S., 483, is as follows: \u201cIf the action is against a corporation, to the president or other head of the corporation, secretary, cashier, treasurer, director, managing or local agent thereof. Any person receiving or collecting money in this State for a corporation of this or any other State or government is a local agent for the purpose of this section. Such service can be made in respect to a foreign corporation only when it has property, or the cause of action arose, or the plaintiff resides, in this State, or when it can be made personally within the State upon the president, treasurer or secretary thereof.\u201d\nPierce, as the trial court found, was not a general and superintending agent of the defendant; he was therefore not a managing agent. Cunningham v. Express Co., 67 N. C., 425. He did not have exclusive supervision and control of any department of the defendant\u2019s business, the management of which required the exercise of independent judgment and discretion. 21 R. C. L., 1353; Furniture Co. v. Furniture Co., 180 N. C., 531. It is equally obvious that he was not a local agent.. \u201cThe term local pertains to place, and a local agent to receive and collect money, ex vi termini, means an agent residing either permanently or temporarily for the purpose of his agency, and was not intended to embrace a mere transient agent. The mischief chiefly intended to be provided against, no doubt, was to give a remedy in our courts against corporations chartered in other States who make contracts in this State and appoint special agents or attorneys in fact to make collections.\u201d Moore v. Bank, 92 N. C., 590. Tbe scope of the word \u201cagent\u201d is given in Whitehurst v. Kerr, 153 N. C., 76: \u201cWhile there is some apparent conflict of decision in construing these statutes providing for service of process on corporations arising chiefly from the difference in the terms used in the various statutes on the subject, the cases will be found in \u2022general agreement on the position that in defining the term agent it is not the descriptive name employed, but the nature of the business and the extent of the authority given and exercised which is determinative, and the word does not properly extend to a subordinate employee without discretion, but must be one regularly employed, having some charge or measure of control over the business entrusted to him, or of some feature of it, and of sufficient character and rank as to afford reasonable assurance that he will communicate to his company the fact that process has been served upon him.\u201d In accord with this are the preceding cases of Kelly v. LeFaiver, 144 N. C., 5, and Higgs v. Sperry, supra. The case of R. R. v. Cobb, 190 N. C., 375, may easily be distinguished. In view of the foregoing decisions the plaintiff\u2019s assignments of error must be resolved in favor of the appellee. The judgment is\nAffirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "AdaMs, J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Pegram & Thornton a\\nd James F. Rector for plaintiff.",
      "Lee, Ford & Coxe for defendant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "WILLIAM TINKER v. RICE MOTORS, Inc.\n(Filed 11 December, 1929.)\n1. Appeal and Error 3 c \u2014 Findings of fact supported by evidence are not subject to review.\nUpon a motion to set aside a purported service of process and to dismiss tbe action, tbe findings of fact of the trial court in relation thereto, supported by tbe evidence, are not subject to review on appeal.\n2. Process B d \u2014 Local bookkeeper of foreign corporation is not agent on whom valid service of corporation can be made.\nTbe local bookkeeper of a nonresident corporation, whose sole duty is to collect tbe defendant\u2019s account here, who is not an officer or director of tbe corporation, and who is without managing or supervisory authority and not clothed with discretion by bis principal, is not an agent of the corporation on whom valid service of process on the corporation can be made.\nAppeal by plaintiff from J ohnson, Special Judge. From Biencombe.\nAffirmed.\nPegram & Thornton a\\nd James F. Rector for plaintiff.\nLee, Ford & Coxe for defendant."
  },
  "file_name": "0073-01",
  "first_page_order": 143,
  "last_page_order": 145
}