Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/26

6 6 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. jurisdiction is acquired over a foreign corporation even in suits by non-residents, and upon contracts made and to be performed out- side of the State ; and in other States it has been declared that, in the absence, at least, of express language to that effect, such statutes cannot be construed as requiring foreign corporations to submit to jurisdiction over causes of action arising outside of the State, and having no relation to any business transacted within the State ; ^ and in one of these cases the court said : " To hold other- wise would be to allow foreign corporations which transact business in Alabama to be drawn into our courts for the adjudication of every contract and every tort and wrong they may be charged with committing, even in the State which gave them their being." There are two classes of statutes relating to the service oT process on foreign corporations. In one class it is merely pro- vided that service of process on such corporations may be made on certain officers or agents within the State ; in the other, it is declared, as a condition on which they are allowed to transact business within the State, that they shall designate a person on whom process may be served with like effect as if service of process had been made on the corporation within the State, or even with like effect as if made on a domestic corporation. In either class of cases there is no question but that if the corporation transacts business in the State, and an action arise out of this business, jurisdiction in personam may be acquired by service of process on such agent. It is equally well settled that under the statute of the former class, if the corporation transact no business in the State, jurisdiction cannot be acquired by serving process on an officer or agent casually within the State,^ even though the local statute provide that process against a foreign corporation may be served on any officer or agent of the company within the State.^ Such a statute, said Chief Justice Beasley, in the case just cited, does not give any new right of suit, nor does it purport to take away any of the privileges of foreign corporations. It simply appoints a method of bringing corporations invested with a foreign character into the courts of this State when such courts have jurisdiction over them. In such cases it is only when the agents represent the 1 Sawyer v. North Am. Life Ins. Co., 46 Vt. 697 ; Bawknight v. London L. & G. Ins. Co., 55 Ga. 194 ; Central R. R. Banking Co. v. Carr, 76 Ala. 388 ; 52 Am. Rep. 339. ' Moulin V. Trenton Insurance Co., 4 Zab. (N. J.) 222. U. S. 350; Goldey v. Morning News Co., 156 U. S. 518.
 * Camden Rolling Mill Co. z/. Swede Iron Co., 3 Vr. (N.J.) 15; St. Clair z/. Cox, 106