Page:Mallory v. Norfolk Southern.pdf/41

10 In its negative aspects, the Commerce Clause serves to “mediate [the States’] competing claims of sovereign authority” to enact regulations that affect commerce among the States. National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, 598 U. S. ___, ___ (2023) (slip op., at 14). The doctrine recognizes that “one State’s power to impose burdens on … interstate market[s] … is not only subordinate to the federal power over interstate commerce, but is also constrained by the need to respect the interests of other States.” BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U. S. 559, 571 (1996) (citing Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 194–196 (1824)). It is especially appropriate to look to the dormant Commerce Clause in considering the constitutionality of the authority asserted by Pennsylvania’s registration scheme. Because the right of an out-of-state corporation to do business in another State is based on the dormant Commerce Clause, it stands to reason that this doctrine may also limit a State’s authority to condition that right. See Granholm v. Heald, 544 U. S. 460, 472 (2005); H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, 539 (1949).

This Court and other courts have long examined assertions of jurisdiction over out-of-state companies in light of interstate commerce concerns. Consider Davis v. Farmers Co-operative Equity Co., 262 U. S. 312 (1923), a case very much like the one now before us. In Davis, a Kansas company sued a Kansas railroad in Minnesota on a claim that