Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/437

 This was not personal service of the summons without the state, within the meaning of the statute, which permits such service as a substitute for publication and deposit in the postoffice. It was not personal service in any sense. It was but the completion of the transportation of the envelope and its contents by mail. Her husband did not pretend to, nor did he in fact, serve upon her any paper. He merely brought her her mail. The sealed envelope might with no different effect upon her rights have been handed to her by a letter carrier, or by some one at the postoffice. It was not contended that the papers were personally served upon defendant, in the strict sense of the term. But it was urged that the statute providing for such service did not contemplate the same kind of service as is requisite where a personal judgment is sought to be obtained against a defendant by service of a summons within the state; that the main, and only important, purpose of the statute was to give the defendant notice of a suit in which jurisdiction of his property had already been secured by the issuance and levy of an attachment; and that the receipt of the summons and complaint by mail gave her such notice. In short, it is contended that jurisdiction is not obtained by the service without the state, but by the levy of the attachment antedating service.

This view is based on an erroneous conception of proceedings by attachment. They are not, strictly speaking, proceedings in rem. Such proceedings are simply against specific property, or interests therein. No person is named in the proceeding as a party. The whole world is bound. The seizure is notice. It confers jurisdiction. No other prerequisite to jurisdiction is prescribed. Under our system the seizure of the property does not confer absolute jurisdiction. That jurisdiction is conditional. It will be defeated by failure to comply with a jurisdictional condition subsequent. Had the statute required publication of the summons, or its equivalent—personal service without the state—as a condition precedent to jurisdiction over property seized, where there had been seizure of property under attachment, it would not be seriously urged that that condition must not be strictly complied with. It cannot alter the rule that such service is essential to preservation of a qualified juris-