Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/29

9 JURISDICTION OVER FOREIGN CORPORATIONS. 9 the condition under which the contract was made was that an agent should be appointed to accept service of process in a suit on such contract. And in this case Mr. Justice Curtis, while asserting the principle that the States might impose conditions upon the transaction of business by foreign corporations, said : " These conditions must not be inconsistent with those rules of public law which secure the jurisdiction and authority of each State from encroachment by all others, or that principle of natural jus- tice which forbids condemnation without opportunity of defence." These cases, therefore, leave the question open whether a foreign corporation sending its representatives into a State for one purpose is found there in the person of these representatives for the purpose of being called to account in all causes of action ; and also whether a corporation which, as a condition of doing business in a State, appoints an agent to receive a service of process there, can be said to be found there for the purpose of being sued for causes of action having no relation to the business done within the State. It must be remembered that a foreign corporation exists by virtue of the laws of another sovereignty, and has no existence outside of the territory where it was created, except so far as its existence is recognized by the laws of other countries; and even though its existence be recognized there, it cannot exist there except so far as it acts there by its agents. It may by the leave, express or implied, of the other sovereignty establish a place of business there, and if it is recognized there, it is then found there for the purpose of its business, and may be regarded as found there for the purpose of being sued ; but this is only because, by having sent its agents there subject to the conditions imposed by the local law, it has consented to be found there for the purpose of being sued. Although it is well settled that a corporation, by establishing a place of business in another State, may be found there in the per- sons of its agents for the purpose of being sued with reference to that business, yet it has been repeatedly decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that even in such a case the residence of such a corporation is exclusively in the State of its creation, and it must be regarded as a citizen of that State alone ; ^ and even though it be said that a corporation acquires a domicile where it 1 Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Pet. 519; La Fayette Ins. Co. v, French, 18 How. 404; Shaw V. Milling Co., 145 U. S. 444; Remers v. Seatco Mfg. Co., 70 Fed. Rep. 573-577. 2