Page:Henry Osborn Taylor, A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations (5th ed, 1905).djvu/420

 § 412.] THE LAW OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. [CHAP. VII. The plaintiff in Muller v. Dows was a resident of Missouri, and sued the corporation in the United States Circuit Court for Iowa. The corporation was incorporated by both Missouri and Iowa; and it was held that as to suits brought in Iowa the Mis- souri corporation could not be regarded, and the Circuit Court for Iowa had jurisdiction of the suit. 1 On similar principles, applied under reversed circumstances, it was held in Ohio *fe Miss. K. It. Co. v. Wheeler, 2 that a corporation created by Ohio and Indiana could not sue a citizen of Indiana in a United States Circuit Court for the district of Indiana. The Federal Supreme Court has recently enunciated the fol- lowing proposition : a railroad corporation ma} r, when author- ized by its own state, accept authority from another state to extend its road into such state, and subject itself to rules, etc., prescribed by the second state. This is not within the prohi- bition of the Federal constitution against compacts between states. Such corporations may be treated by each of the states as domestic corporations. The presumption that a corporation is composed of citizens of the state creating it, accompanies it when it does business in another state, and it may sue or be sued in the Federal courts in such other state as a citizen of the state of its original crea- corporation created by Maryland does not become a citizen of Virginia by taking a lease of a Virginia rail- road, and can still remove to the Federal court a suit brought against it by a citizen of Virginia. R. R. Co. v. Koontz, 104 U. S. 5. A domestic corporation created by a state divided into more than one Federal district, is for purposes of determining Fed- eral jurisdiction, a citizen of that district where it has its headquarters, etc. Galveston, etc., Ry. Co. v. Gon- zales, 151 U. S. 496. Where by the local law a foreign corporation is amenable to suit in the courts of the state, service being made upon an agent within the state, the Federal courts may be regarded as courts of the state, and may take jurisdiction on a service that would 400 be good in a state court. Ex parte Schollenberger, 96 U. S. 369; Eaton v. St. Louis, etc., Mfg. Co., 2 McCrary 362. Even if the state statutes do not authorize suits by persons not resident of that state, a Federal court may take jurisdiction of an ac- tion begun by a citizen of another state by service upon an agent of a foreign corporation designated by it pursuant to a state statute. Barrow Steamship Co. v. Kane, 170 U. S. 100. 1 See § 408. Also, Marshall v. Bal- timore, etc., R. R. Co., 16 How. 314. 2 1 Black. 286, § 408; accord, Mem- phis, etc., R. R. Co. v. Alabama, 107 U. S. 581; County of Allegheny v. Cleveland, etc., R. R. Co., 51 Pa. St. 228. Compare R. R. Co. v. Harris, 12 Wall. 65.