Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/908

872 872 HARVARD LAW REVIEW under the provision of Article IV, section i, that "full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State." ^ The enforcement of a judgment against a defendant over whom the court has no jurisdiction involves a violation of the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law." ^ The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States upon the question of jurisdic- tion over the defendant are, therefore, under these two provisions, binding upon the states. "The foundation of jurisdiction is physical power." ^^ A state cannot authorize its courts to reach out and impose liabilities upon persons over whom the state has no control. In other juris- dictions such an attempt would be regarded as an impertinence, an unauthorized assimiption of power. " Can the island of Tobago pass a law to bind the rights of the whole world?" asked Lord Ellenborough. "Would the world submit to such an assumed jurisdiction?"" In the leading case of Pennoyer v. Neff,^^ Mr. Justice Field said: "The authority of every tribunal is necessarily restricted by the terri- torial limits of the State in which it is established. Any attempt to exercise authority beyond those limits would be deemed in every other forum, as has been said by this court, an illegitimate assumption of power, and be resisted as mere abuse." A state cannot compel parties domiciled in another state to leave it and respond to proceedings brought against them, or impose liabilities upon them on their failure to appear. It is immaterial 8 Dull V. Blackman, 169 U. S. 243 (1898); Old Wayne Life Ass'n v. McDonough, 204 U. S. 8 (1907). 9 Dewey v. Des Moines, 173 U. S. 193 (1899); Simon v. Southern Ry. Co., 236 U. S. 115 (1915); Riverside, etc. Mills v. Menefee, 237 U. S. 189 (1915). See Pennoyer V. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 732, 733 (1877). 1" McDonald v. Mabee, 243 U. S. 90 (191 7), per Holmes, J. ^^ Buchanan v. Rucker, 9 East, 191 (1808). ^ 95 U. S. 714, 720 (1877). See also Baker v. Baker, Eccles & Co., 242 U. S. 394 (1917), per Pitney, J.: "To hold one bound by the judgment who has not had such opportimity is contrary to the first principles of justice. And to assume that a party resident beyond the confines of a State is required to come within its borders and submit his personal controversy to its tribunals upon receiving notice of the suit at the place of his residence is a futile attempt to extend the authority and control of a State beyond its own territory."