Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/28

8 8 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. The objection, then, to entertaining jurisdiction over a foreign corporation for a cause of action arising abroad does not consist in the fact that there is no jurisdiction to determine the cause of action. The difficulty lies rather in the question whether the cor- poration is found within the territory for the purpose of answering to any such action. It has been held that, with respect to business done within the State or country, it is represented by the agents who transact the business, or agents especially appointed to receive Service of process ; but it does not follow that by this means it has brought itself within the jurisdiction of the courts with respect to all its transactions in the country of its creation, or in all parts of the world. Judge Jackson, in the telephone case above referred to,^ says that, where these conditions exist, and there is a local law authoriz- ing the service of process on agents within the State, a foreign corporation is found within the State, and is liable to suit there in the State or Federal courts by service of process on the resident agent, and that the underlying principle of the decisions that he refers to is that the State may impose conditions on the transaction of business within the State by corporations chartered elsewhere. The decisions that he referred to were all rendered in cases in which the action had reference to the subject-matter of the agency or business within the State. It had been held that when a corpora- tion sent agents into a State for the purposes of its business, there was no reason why, to the extent of their agency, they should not be deemed to represent it when called to a legal responsibility for their action.^ It was because the corporation had come into the State by its agents for the transaction of its business that it was held to be found there in the same agents for the purpose of being sued there with respect to that business ; and the case in Ohio,^ where an agent had been appointed under the statute, was a case in which the action was brought upon a contract made in Ohio, and San Francisco Vigilance Committee, Maloney v. Dows, 8 Abbott, Pr. 316, which he says contain an instructive analysis of the law upon the question whether and in what cases the courts of one country should take cognizance of controversies arising in a foreign country, or in places outside of the jurisdiction of any country. His own opinion in the case of The Belgenland is confined to an inquiry into the rule followed by the Courts of Admiralty. 1 United States v. Bell Telephone Co., 29 Fed. Rep. 17 ' St. Clair v. Cox, 106 U. S. 330, 355. » La Fayette Ins. Co. v. French, 18 How. 404.