Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/923

887 BUSINESS JURISDICTION OVER NONRESIDENTS 887 the state. The mere fact that the state may not prevent the doing of such acts does not preclude it from imposing such conditions. The police power is not confined to regulations of pubHc health, morals, safety, and the Uke. It affects economic as well as social conditions. "It embraces regulations designed to promote public convenience or the general prosperity or welfare." ^^ The condi- tions, to be sure, must be such as fairly fall within the proper scope of the police power, and such as do not violate any rights guaran- teed by the federal Constitution, such as those protected by the interstate-commerce clause or by the "privileges and immunities" clauses or the due-process clause, or the clause forbidding a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Undoubtedly a statute forbidding a foreign corpora- tion to enter the state to carry on interstate commerce, without filing a consent to the jurisdiction of the courts of the state as to all causes of action, no matter where or how arising, is unconstitu- tional.^® Similarly, doubtless, a statute forbidding a nonresident to operate his automobile within the state, unless he has consented to submit himself to the jurisdiction of the courts of the state as to all causes of action, whether or not arising out of the operation of the automobile in the state, would be unconstitutional. Simi- larly, doubtless, a statute providing that nonresidents should not do business within the state without having consented to the juris- diction of the courts of the state as to all causes of action, no matter where or how arising, would be unconstitutional. ^ Sligh V. Kirkwood, 237 U. S. 52, 59 (1915). See, also, Central Loan & Trust Co. V. CampbeU, 173 U. S. 84 (1899); C. B. & Q. Railway v. Drainage Comm'rs, 200 U. S. 561, S92 (1906); Bacon v. Walker, 204 U. S. 311 (1907); Noble State Bank v. HaskeU, 219 U. S. 104 (1911); Eubank v. Richmond, 226 U. S. 137 (1912). See Freund, Police Power, §§ 8, 12. ^ Sioux Remedy Co. v. Cope, 235 U. S. 197, 205 (1914). In that case the court said: "The second^ [condition], respecting the appointment of a resident agent upon whom process may be served, is particularly burdensome, because, as the Supreme Court of the State has said, it requires the corporation to subject itself to the juris- diction of the courts of the State in general as a prerequisite to suing in any of them; that is to say, it withholds the right to sue even in a single instance until the corpora- tion renders itself amenable to suit in all the courts of the State by whosoever chooses to sue it there. If one State can impose such a condition others can, and in that way corporations engaged in interstate commerce can be subjected to great embarrass- ment and serious hazards in the enforcement of contractual rights directly arising out of and connected with such commerce. As applied to such rights we think the conditions are unreasonable and burdensome, and therefore in conflict with the commerce clause."