Mercantile Trust Co. v. Terminal & Eastern Railroad

This suit was brought by plaintiff against the Stockton Terminal and Eastern Railroad Company to foreclose a mortgage made by it to plaintiff to secure an issue of bonds of the defendant company. "When the suit was brought one C. M. Prater was secretary of the defendant corporation. His name did not appear in the complaint as a party to the suit. In the action summons was delivered to the sheriff of San Joaquin County for service and his return thereon was to the effect that he served the same upon the defendant corporation on the eleventh day of June, 1917, by delivering to and leaving with C. M. Prater, as secretary of said Stockton Terminal and Eastern Railroad Company in San Joaquin County, a copy of said summons attached to a copy of the complaint therein.

On the twentieth day of June, 1917, said court made the following order: “For good cause shown, it is hereby ordered that C. M. Prater, served as one of the defendants in the above-entitled action, have until the first day of July, 1917, to appear and demur or file such other answer as he may desire.”

On the twenty-sixth day of June, 1917, no answer or demurrer having been filed by the defendant company, the county clerk…