Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/573

 E£LLSY V. UISSISSIFPI CBNX. B. 00. 565 �equal force that one not a party to a suit cannot be heard to interfere with it. In Bronson v. La Crosse E. Co. 2 Wall. 283, 292, it is said that generally other persons are not per- mitted to plead for a corporation, because of the inequality that would exist between the parties. The corporation not being before the court woiild not be bound by any judgment rendered on such pleas; but, lest there should be a reproach to the law, stockholders were permitted to plead for them- selves, where the corporation had abandoned its defence and its trust. �Every corporation has officers who speak and act for it by authority of law, and process must be served on the proper officer, or the judicial proceeding is not binding. Alexandria V. Fairfax, 95 U. S. 774. Under the Tennessee Code a failure to elect officers does not dissolve corporations, and those last in office continue, and process may be served upon them; so, after dissolution, they continue for five years for the very purpose of prosecuting and defending suits. T. & S. Code, §§ 1481, 1493, 2831, 2834. If the defendant here has a qualified existence, under these provisions of the statute, there should be a plea by the corporation itself. In the absence of Buch statutes the tendency of modern decisions is to treat a corporation once existing as continuing to exist for the pur- pose of suing and being sued in winding up its affairs; Pomeroy v. Bank, 1 Wall, 23; R. Co. v. Evans, 6 Heisk. 607; Skackelford v. R. Co. 52 Miss. 159. �But we are met at the threshold with the question whether this defendant exists at ail, for any purpose, as a question of fact to be ascertained in determining whether the plàintiflF is entitled to a judgment by default. He insists that he has the right to take his judgment at the peril of its being void, if there be, in fact, no corporation. In England there can be no judgment by default without appearance, and if the defend- ant refuses to appear the plaintiff must enter appearance for him, and in doing so must make affidavit of proper service on the defendant. This may be contested by cross-affidavits, and motions to quash the service and the writ. 3 Chit. Prac. 264, 277, 280. In Alabama and other states the court will ��� �