EXPANDING PRINCIPLES OF JURISDICTION

Authors

Abstract

In the recent case of Frank S. Young Co. v. McNeal-Edwards Co., the plaintiff, a Massachusetts corporation, purchased a quantity of oil from the defendant, a Virginia corporation, the vendee to return the oil drums. Alleging a breach of warranty, the plaintiff filed suit in Massachusetts, gaining jurisdiction by attachment of the oil drums. Subsequently the defendant filed suit for conversion of these oil drums, upon which the plaintiff dropped his first suit and started this suit in the federal court by a service of process upon the attorney of record of the defendant in its suit as provided under the Massachusetts statute. The lower court refused to recognize this method of gaining jurisdiction as binding upon federal courts sitting in the jurisdiction. However, on appeal, the Supreme Court reversed this decision, saying that, since the process provided for by this statute was merely the giving to the common law right of set-off the formality of a separate suit, the federal courts would follow it under the Conformity Act.

Recommended Citation

EXPANDING PRINCIPLES OF JURISDICTION, 30 Mich. L. Rev. 947 (1932).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol30/iss6/10