Merchants' Mfg. Co. v. Grand Trunk Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 30 August 1882
• Citation: 13 F. 358
• Parties: MERCHANTS' MANUF'G CO. v. GRAND TRUNK RY. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

13 F. 358

MERCHANTS' MANUF'G CO. v. GRAND TRUNK RY. CO.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. New York.

August 30, 1882

Wingate & Cullen, for complainant.

Butler Stillman & Butler, for defendant.

WALLACE C. J.

The motion to vacate the service of the writ raises a question of jurisdiction. The suit is brought by a foreign corporation against a foreign corporation to recover damages for the loss of merchandise of the plaintiff while being transported by the defendant in the dominion of Canada. It is insisted that the court has no jurisdiction, because the laws of this state provide that an action against a foreign corporation can only be maintained by another foreign corporation in one of the following cases: (1) When brought to recover damages for the breach of a contract made within this state, or relating to property situated within the state at the time of the making thereof; (2) when brought to recover specific real property situated within the state, or a chattel replevied within the state; (3) where the cause of action arose within the state except when the object of the action is to affect the title to real property situated without the state.

It will not be contended that a citizen of a foreign state can be denied access to this court by a state law, or that jurisdiction over persons or subject-matter which is devolved by the constitution and laws of the United States upon the federal courts can be circumscribed by any legislative action by the state. Ry. Co. v. Whitton, 13 Wall. 286; Payne v. Hook, 7 Wall. 427; The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411; Ins. Co. v. Morse, 20 Wall. 445. Nor is it claimed that a corporation created by another state which, for all the purposes of suing and being sued in the federal courts, is deemed a citizen of that state, may not maintain an action against another foreign corporation in these courts upon any cause of action of which the court has jurisdiction, whenever it can obtain due service of process upon the defendant. Neither is it seriously asserted that the cause of action in the present suit is not one of which this court has cognizance.

The real objection, then, if any there be, is that jurisdiction of the person of the defendant cannot be acquired. No suit can be brought in this court 'against an inhabitant of the United States by any original process in any other district than that of which he is an inhabitant, or in which he is found at the time of serving the writ,' (Rev. St. Sec. 739;) and the case turns on the point whether the defendant can be 'found,' within the meaning of this statute, in the district where the suit is brought. The defendant's argument leads to the proposition that a foreign corporation cannot be 'found' in this state except to litigate certain specified controversies, of which this is not one.

A corporation, although it cannot migrate beyond the limits of the sovereignty which has created it, may be comity exercise its franchises elsewhere. A foreign corporation can transact business here upon such conditions as may be imposed upon it by the laws of this state. It can be sued whenever the technical obstacles in the way of compelling its appearance do not exist. At common law, process must be served on its principal officer within the jurisdiction of the sovereignty where the corporate body exists. But it can waive this requirement and consent to be served in a different manner, and when it does this it stands on the same footing with a natural person. When it avails itself of the privileges of doing business in a state whose laws authorize it to be sued there by service of process upon an agent, its assent to that mode of service is implied. Accordingly, it has been repeatedly held that a foreign corporation consents to be amenable to suit by such mode of service as the laws of the state provide, when it invokes the comity of the state for the transaction of its affairs. Lafayette Ins. Co. v. French, 18 How. 404; Railroad Co. v. Harris, 12 Wall. 81; Ex parte Schollenberger, 96 U.S. 369. It waives the right to object to the mode of service of process which the state laws authorize.

The laws of this state enact that a foreign...