Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/33

JURISDICTION OVER FOREIGN CORPORATIONS. 1 3 Georgia, but doing business also in Alabama, having its line in both States. The plaintiff sued for personal injuries received while travelling in Georgia, and the summons was served on " a white person in the employ of the company," as authorized by statute. It was held by the Supreme Court of Alabama that the action could not be maintained. The court said that the service on such an agent would give jurisdiction of a cause of action which origi- nated in one State, but that it is well settled that no action in personam can be maintained against a foreign corporation unless the contract sued on was made, or the injury complained of was suffered, in the State in which the action is brought.^ The court said : " We cannot think that it was the intention of the legisla- ture in any of the statutes we have been considering to allow foreign corporations to be sued in the State, except on causes of action originating in this State, or on contracts entered into with reference to a subject-matter within this State. To hold otherwise would be to allow foreign corporations which transact business in Alabama to be drawn into our courts for the adjudica- tion of every contract and every tort and wrong they may be charged with committing, even in the State which gave them being." The decisions in Massachusetts to the effect that suits may be maintained against foreign corporations for any cause of action, no matter where it originated, were cases in which an agent had been appointed to receive service of process under a statute requiring this to be done before any business can be done within the State, and this involves a different question, which will be discussed later. What is decided by the cases just cited is that the mere fact that there is an agent in the State on whom process may be served, and that the law authorizes the suit to be brought against a foreign corporation by means of the service of such process, does not give jurisdiction over suits arising outside of the territory and having no connection with the business done there. There are circumstances, however, under which a corporation seems to make itself peculiarly subject to the laws of a foreign State or country. It is notorious that corporations organized for 1 The court cited Bawknight v. Liverpool, etc. Ins. Co., 55 Ga. 194 ; Sawyer w. North American Life Ins. Co., 46 Vt. 697 ; Smith v. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 14 Allen, 386; St. Clair V. Fox, 106 U. S. 350 ; News Co. v. Great W. Ry. of Canada, 19 Mich. 336; Parks V. Com. Ins. Co, 44 Pa. St. 422; Camden Rolling Mill Co. v. Swede Iron Co., 32 N. J. L. 1 5 ; but these cases do not all go so far as to maintain this proposition.