Kneeland v. Ethicon Suture Laboratories, Inc.

[336]

BRAY, J.

Defendant Ethicon Suture Laboratories, Inc.,

*

moved to dismiss plaintiff’s appeal from an order quashing service of summons on said defendant.

Question Presented

Was an order quashing service of summons on a foreign corporation for lack of personal jurisdiction in effect a final judgment and therefore appealable, prior to the amendment of section 963 of the Code of Civil Procedure?

Facts

Defendant is a foreign corporation. Service of summons was attempted to be made on it by service on the Secretary of State pursuant to Corporations Code sections 6501 and 6502. Defendant moved to quash that service on the ground that defendant neither owned property nor conducted business in California. The order quashing was made September 13, 1951. Approximately nine days later, September 22, the amendment to section 963, Code of Civil Procedure, expressly allowing appeals from orders quashing service of summons, became effective. Prior to the amendment the section did not expressly provide for an appeal from an order quashing service. Defendant contends that the order is not appealable. Plaintiff contends primarily that even prior to the amendment the order was appealable as the order was in effect a final judgment.

Was the Order in Effect a Final Judgment?

The test of whether an order is a final judgment is stated in

Lyon

v.

Goss,

19 Cal.2d 659, 670 [123 P.2d 11]: “As a general test, which must be adapted to the particular circumstances of the individual case, it may be said that where no issue is left for future consideration except the fact of compliance or noncompliance with the terms of the first decree, that decree is final, but where anything further in the nature of judicial action on the part of the court is essential to a final determination of the rights of the parties, the decree is interlocutory.” See, also,