Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/23

3 JURISDICTION OVER FOREIGN CORPORATIONS, 3 in England Lord Blackburn said in 1872 that he was not aware of any reported case in which a foreign corporation had been sued in a court of law, and while he refused to set aside the service of a summons, he said the defendant might raise the question afier appearing on the record.^ The idea that corporations cannot migrate had its origin in cases relating to municipal and ecclesiastical corporations in Eng- land, which were local in their character; and when the law of corporations was applied in this country to associations for the purposes of business, it was soon found that although in legal con- templation they dwelt in the place of their <freation, they did in fact transact business in all parts of the country, and as more and more of the business of the country came to be transacted by cor- porations, it became evident that it was necessary that some theory should be devised by which they should be amenable to actions in the States in which their business was transacted. It was sug- gested, therefore, that they could not transact business there at all without the assent, express or implied, of the State to which they came ; that being mere creatures of the law of another State, their existence need not be recognized at all, except under conditions ; and it was competent for the legislature to declare that, if they came and transacted business, they should be considered as found there for the purpose of service of process in litigation arising out of business in which the company was so engaged. The principle that, in order to jurisdiction in a suit in personam, the corporation must be found within the territory of the court in which the suit is brought is fundamental ; but the rule that the proc- ess must be served upon the principal officer was a rule of prac- tice founded only on the necessity of giving notice to a person who really represents the company, with respect to the subject-matter of the suit. When, therefore, companies sent their agents into foreign jurisdictions and transacted business there, it was com- petent for the government of those States or countries to declare that the agents sent for the purpose of transacting business did in fact represent the companies with respect to that business, and that the companies were in fact found there for the purposes of litigation arising out of that business. Such was the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1855, in La Fayette Insurance Co. v. French;^ and in 1882 the same court, in a later
 * Newby v. Van Oppen, L. R. 7 Q. B. 293. « 18 How. 404.