First Family Mortg. Corp. of Florida v. Durham

• Decision Date: 14 November 1985
• Citation: 500 A.2d 746,205 N.J.Super. 251
• Parties: FIRST FAMILY MORTGAGE CORPORATION OF FLORIDA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Linda A. DURHAM, Defendant-Respondent, and Mr. Linda Durham, Defendant, and Attorney General of New Jersey, Intervenor-Respondent.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 251

205 N.J.Super. 251

500 A.2d 746

FIRST FAMILY MORTGAGE CORPORATION OF FLORIDA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Linda A. DURHAM, Defendant-Respondent, and Mr. Linda Durham, Defendant,

and

Attorney General of New Jersey, Intervenor-Respondent.

Superior Court of New Jersey,

Appellate Division.

Argued Oct. 2, 1985.

Decided Nov. 14, 1985.

William M.E. Powers, III, Moorestown, for plaintiff-appellant (William M.E. Powers, Jr., Medford, attorney; William M.E. Powers, III, Moorestown, on the brief).

Beverly K. Thompson, for defendant-respondent Linda A. Durham.

Harry Haushalter, Deputy Atty. Gen., for intervenor-respondent (Irwin I. Kimmelman, Atty. Gen. of N.J., attorney; James J. Ciancia, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel; Harry Haushalter, on brief).

Before Judges FRITZ, BRODY and BAIME.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

BRODY, J.A.D.

Plaintiff, a Florida corporation not authorized to do business in New Jersey, appeals from an order for summary judgment dismissing, without prejudice, its suit to foreclose a mortgage on respondent's New Jersey home. The dismissal is based on plaintiff's failure to file the "notice of business activities report" required by N.J.S.A. 14A:13-15(e) (hereafter refered to as "the statute") of "every foreign corporation" that receives within "any calendar or fiscal accounting year ... payments from persons residing in this State ... aggregating in excess of $25,000.00 regardless of any other connections with this State;...." A foreign corporation not authorized to do business in New Jersey may not "maintain any action or proceeding in any State or Federal court in New Jersey, until such corporation shall have filed a timely notice of business activities report." N.J.S.A. 14A:13-20(a). We affirm the dismissal.

Plaintiff concedes that it has never filed the notice. It argues that the Commerce Clause of the federal constitution protects it from the reach of the statute because it is engaged solely in interstate commerce. Plaintiff acquired the mortgage in the secondary mortgage market along with other federally guaranteed home mortgages from around the country. These mortgages are sold to investors in the form of Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA) securities issued pursuant to 24 C.F.R. § 390 under the National Housing Act, 12 U.S.C.A. § 1716 et seq.

We adhere to our holding in Associates Consumer Discount Co. v. Bozzarello, 149 N.J.Super. 358, 373 A.2d 1016 (App.Div.1977), that a foreigncorporation engaged in interstate commerce may constitutionally be denied access to our courts until it files a notice of business activities report even though it may later be determined that the corporation is not engaged in intrastate business activities in New Jersey. The trial judge expressed reluctance to follow Associates because he concluded, based upon the information contained in a brief affidavit of plaintiff's vice-president, that plaintiff was not engaged in intrastate business activities in New Jersey. The information in that affidavit is essentially the same information that a notice of business activities report would have contained had plaintiff filed one.

As we explained in Associates, the purpose of the notice requirement is to identify foreign corporations engaged in taxable intrastate business activities in this state so that they will pay their fair share of taxes. See Avco Financial Services Consumer v. Director, 100 N.J. 27, 31-33, 494 A.2d 788 (1985). The statute imposes no tax upon foreign corporations that are protected by the Commerce Clause. It merely requires a foreign corporation that receives payments aggregating more than $25,000 a year from New Jersey residents to supply the minimal information that plaintiff supplied in this suit. This information permits the taxing authorities, and not the corporation, to make the final administrative determination as to whether the corporation is tax exempt. Plaintiff does not claim that filing the notice would be onerous or would place it at a competitive disadvantage.

Plaintiff argues that in Associates we overlooked numerous cases holding that a state may not directly or indirectly require a foreign corporation engaged solely in interstate commerce to obtain a license or certificate of authority to do business in the state. E.g., Eli Lilly and Co. v. Sav-On-Drugs, 366 U.S. 276, 278-279, 81 S.Ct. 1316, 1318, 6 L.Ed.2d 288, 291-292 (1961); Coons v. American Honda Motor Co., 94 N.J. 307, 318, 463 A.2d 921 (1983). Plaintiff correctly states the holding in those cases, but they are distinguishable because the statute considered here and in Associates does not require licensure. A key feature of licensure statutes is a provision that requires a foreign corporation to appoint a local registered agent "upon whom process against the corporation may be served." See, e.g., N.J.S.A. 14A:13-4(1)(d). A state may not require a foreign corporation engaged solely in interstate commerce to consent to being sued in that state as the price of doing interstate business there.

By contrast, compliance with N.J.S.A. 14A:13-15 does not expose...