State v. The American Book Company

• Decision Date: 21 July 1902
• Docket Number: 13,194
• Citation: 65 Kan. 847,69 P. 563
• Parties: THE STATE OF KANSAS, ex rel., v. THE AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

69 P. 563

65 Kan. 847

THE STATE OF KANSAS, ex rel., v. THE AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

No. 13,194

Supreme Court of Kansas

July 21, 1902

Decided July, 1902.

Original proceeding in quo warranto.

Petition denied.

Galen Nichols, and Quinton & Quinton, for The State.

A. M Harvey, F. Dumont Smith, and Rossington, Smith & Histed for defendant.

DOSTER C. J., SMITH, GREENE, JJ.

OPINION

Per Curiam:

In this casethe plaintiff seeks to oust the defendant from the prosecution of the business of selling and contracting for the sale of school-books and to annul a contract recently made by it with the state text-book commission for supplying certain school-books.The grounds of the application are that the defendant, as a foreign corporation, has not complied with chapter 10, Laws of 1898, and the amendatory statute of 1901(Gen. Stat. 1901, § 1259 et seq.), entitling it to do business in the state.

The company has complied, although irregularly, informally, and out of time, with the law, except as to section 2 of said act.As to those particulars in which compliance has been attempted, but not technically executed, the statute is directory.Section 2 requires the making of an application to the charter board and the furnishing of certain information to such board.These things the company must do in order to acquire the status of a foreign corporation authorized to do business here.The statute requires the doing of these things by foreign corporations "seeking to do business in this state."Inasmuch as the defendant had been doing business in this state before the enactment of the law, it contends that it was not "seeking to do business" here.It contends that the words "seeking to do business" apply only to corporations which had not theretofore done business, but desired to do it in the future.This is an erroneous view.The statute does not mean thus to discriminate in the requirements of said section 2, and in other like matters, between foreign corporations which had theretofore been doing business here and those which might thereafter apply to do business.

The claim that, because the defendant company is engaged in interstate trade, it cannot be subjected to the regulations of the law of 1898, is untenable.It may be that it cannot be excluded from doing interstate business here, but it can be laid under such reasonable conditions as the filing of its charter, the payment of charter fees, the...