Cooper Manufacturing Company of Mount Vernon Ohio v. Ferguson

by William Burnham Woods

United States Supreme Court

113 U.S. 727

Cooper Manufacturing Company of Mount Vernon Ohio  v.  Ferguson

Section 10 of article 15 of the constitution of the state of Colorado, adopted in 1876, and still in force, provides as follows: corporation shall do any business in this state without having one or more known places of business, and an authorized agent or agents in the same upon whom process may be served.' To carry into effect this clause of the constitution, the legislature of Colorado, in the year 1877, in an act entitled: 'An act to provide for the formation of corporations,' enacted as follows:

'Sec. 23. Foreign corporations shall, before they are authorized or permitted to do any business in this state, make and file a certificate, signed by the president and secretary of such corporation, duly acknowledged, with the secretary of state, and in the office of the recorder of deeds of the county in which such business is carried on, designating the principal place where the business of such corporation shall be carried on in this state, and an authorized agent or agents in this state residing at its principal place of business upon whom process may be served; and such corporation shall be subjected to all the liabilities, restrictions, and duties which are or may be imposed upon corporations of like character organized under the general laws of this state, and shall have no other or greater powers.'

Section 26 of the same act provided that a failure to comply with the provisions of section 23 should render the officers, agents, and stockholders of the corporation individually liable on all its contracts made while the corporation was so in default.

These provisions of the organic and statute law of the state being in force, the plaintiff in error, which was a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the state of Ohio, and having its principal place of business at Mount Vernon, Ohio, on February 22, 1880, at the county of Larimer, in the state of Colorado, entered into a contract in writing of that date with the defendants, who were citizens of Colorado, by which it was agreed that the plaintiff should sell to the defendants, and deliver to them on the cars at Mount Vernon, in the state of Ohio, a steam engine and other machinery, in consideration whereof, the defendants were to pay the plaintiff the price stipulated in the contract for such machinery.

This suit was brought by the plaintiff on August 10, 1880, to recover of the defendants damages for their breach of the contract. The defendants, among other defenses, pleaded-First, that when the contract was entered into, the plaintiff had not made and filed the certificate required by section 23 of the act of 1877; second, that at the time of making the contract the plaintiff did not have a known place of business in the state of Colorado, and did not have an authorized agent or agents in the state upon whom process might be served. The plaintiff demurred to both these answers, because they did not state facts sufficient to constitute a defense to the action. Upon the hearing of the demurrer the judges of the circuit court were divided in opinion, and the presiding judge being of opinion that the demurrer should be overruled, it was overruled accordingly, and the plaintiff electing to stand by its demurrer, judgment was entered against it dismissing its suit, and for costs. By the present writ of error the plaintiff brings that judgment under review.

The certificate of division of opinion recites the facts above set forth, and states the question upon which the judges differed to be: 'Whether the tenth section of article sixteen' (fifteen) 'of the constitution of the state of Colorado, and the twenty-third section of an act of the general assembly of the state of Colorado, passed in the year A. D. 1877, entitled an 'Act to provide for the formation of corporations,' were, or either of them was, under all the circumstances stated, and the various acts passed by the legislature of the state of Colorado, a bar in this action.'

Walter H. Smith, for plaintiff in error.

Thos. M. Robinson, for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 730-732 intentionally omitted]

WOODS, J.

Notes