Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Company of Philadelphia v. Gold Issue Mining Milling Company

• Decision Date: 06 March 1917
• Docket Number: No. 584,584
• Citation: 243 U.S. 93,37 S.Ct. 344,61 L.Ed. 610
• Parties: PENNSYLVANIA FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA, Plff. in Err., v. GOLD ISSUE MINING & MILLING COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

243 U.S. 93

37 S.Ct. 344

61 L.Ed. 610

PENNSYLVANIA FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA, Plff. in Err.,

v GOLD ISSUE MINING & MILLING COMPANY.

No. 584.

Argued January 29, 1917.

Decided March 6, 1917.

Messrs. Fred Herrington, Mason A. Lewis, James B. Grant, and David H. Robertson for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Patrick Henry Cullen, Thomas T. Fauntleroy, and Charles M. Hay for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a suit upon a policy of insurance issued in Colorado by the defendant, the plaintiff in error, to the defendant in error, an Arizona corporation, insuring buildings in Colorado. The defendant insurance company had obtained a license to do business in Missouri, and to that end, in compliance with what is now Missouri Rev. Stat. 1909, § 7042, had filed with the superintendent of the insurance department a power of attorney consenting that service of process upon the superintendent should be deemed personal service upon the company so long as it should have any liabilities outstanding in the state. The present suit was begun by service upon the superintendent. The insurance company set up that such service was insufficient except in suits upon Missouri contracts, and that if the statute were construed to govern the present case, it encountered the 14th Amendment by denying to the defendant due process of law. The supreme court of Missouri held that the statute applied and was consistent with the Constitution of the United States. 267 Mo. 524, 184 S. W. 999.

The construction of the Missouri statute thus adopted hardly leaves a constitutional question open. The defendant had executed a power of attorney that made service on the superintendent the equivalent of personal service. If by a corporate vote it had accepted service in this specific case, there would be no doubt of the jurisdiction of the state court over a transitory action of contract. If it had appointed an agent authorized in terms to receive service in such cases, there would be equally little doubt. New York, L. E. & W. R. Co. v. Estill, 147 U. S. 591, 37 L. ed. 292, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 444. It did appoint an agent in language that rationally might be held to go to that length. The language has been held to go to that length, and the construction did not deprive the defendant of due process of law even if it took the defendant by surprise, which we have no warrant to assert. O'Neil v. Northern Colorado Irrig. Co. 242 U. S. 20, 26, 61 L. ed. 123, 37 Sup. Ct. Rep. 7. Other state laws have been construed in a similar way; e. g., Bagdon v. Philadelphia & R. Coal & I. Co. 217 N. Y. 432, L.R.A.1916F, 407, 111 N. E. 1075; Johnson v. Trade Ins. Co. 132 Mass. 432.

The defendant relies upon Old Wayne Mut. Life Asso. v. McDonough, 204 U. S. 8, 51 L. ed. 345, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 236, and Simon v. Southern R. Co. 236 U. S. 115, 59 L. ed. 492, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 255. But the distinction between those cases and the one before us is shown at length in the judgment of the court below, quoting a brief and pointed statement in Smolik v. Philadelphia & R. Coal & I. Co. 222 Fed. 148,—a statement reinforced by Cardozo, J., in Bagdon v. Philadelphia & R. Coal & I. Co. supra. In the above-mentioned suits the corporations had been doing business in certain states without authority. They had not ap- pointed the agent as required by statute, and it was held that service upon the agent whom they should have appointed was ineffective in suits upon causes of action arising in other states. The case of service upon an agent voluntarily appointed was left untouched. 236 U. S. 129, 130. If the business out of which the action arose had been local, it was admitted that the service would have been good, and it was said that the corporation would be presumed to have assented. Of course, as stated by Learned Hand, J., in 222 Fed. 148, 151, this consent is a mere fiction, justified by holding the corporation estopped to set up its own wrong as a defense. Presumably the fiction was adopted to reconcile the intimation with the general rules concerning jurisdiction. Lafayette Ins. Co. v. French, 18 How. 404, 15 L. ed. 451; Michigan Trust Co. v. Ferry...