Eaton v. St. Louis Shakspear Mining & Smelting Co.

vend, etc., improved lanterns covered by complainant's patent. Wherefore complainant prayed that defendants be decreed to account for and pay over to him all gains and profits realized by them from making, using or vending lanterns having the improvements described in his letters patent, and for damages, and a preliminary and perpetual injunction.

The defendants in their answer admit the validity of complainant's patent, and that they have been licensed as claimed, but deny that there has been any breach of condition on their part, or that the said license is not still in force, and allege a breach on the part of complainant.

Noble & Orrick, for complainant.

Edward J. O'Brien, for defendant.

TREAT, District Judge.-The case of Hartell v. Tilghman, 99 U. S. 547, is conclusive of this case. The plaintiff seeks to charge the defendants as infringers of the patent, despite the contract of license, in consequence of non-compliance with its terms. At first it seemed clear, under the contract, that the suit was well founded; but as the majority of the United States supreme court have taken an adverse view, nothing remains for this court but to dismiss this bill, and remit the plaintiff to the remedies indicated in that decision.

Bill dismissed, without prejudice.

EATON V. ST. LOUIS SHAKSPEAR MINING & SMELTING Co. and

others.

(Eastern District of Missouri. March, 1881.)

1. CORPORATION JURISDICTION

CITIZENSHIP.— A corporation is, for jurisdictional purposes, to be regarded as a citizen of the state under the laws of which it is organized.

2. FOREIGN CORPORATIONS - SERVICE OF PROCESS.- Where, by the local law, a foreign corporation is amenable to suit in the courts of the state,

Eaton v. St. Louis Shakspear Mining & Smelting Co.

service being made upon an agent within the state, the federal courts may be regarded as courts of the state, and may take jurisdiction upon such service as would be good in a state court.

3. SAME JURISDICTION. A federal court has no jurisdiction over a foreign corporation, in the absence of local law conferring jurisdiction on the state courts, though the corporation does business through an agent and has an office within the district where the court is held.

*

4. SAME CONSTRUCTION OF STATUTE.- Under the Revised Statutes of Missouri, which provide (section 3489) that “ a summons shall be executed, except as otherwise provided by law: * *fourth, where defendant is a corporation or joint-stock company, organized under the laws of any other state or country, and having an office or doing business in this state, by delivering a copy of the writ and petition to any officer or agent of such corporation or company in charge of any office or place of business; or, if it have no office or place of business, then to any officer or agent or employee in any county where such service may be obtained." Held, that as the St. Louis court of appeals has decided, in a case now before the supreme court of the state, that the above statute does not enlarge the jurisdiction of the state courts, nor authorize suits in personam therein against foreign corporations in cases not coming within the laws previously in force, but simply provides a substitute for constructive notice in a proceeding against such corporations, that the ruling of said court of appeals should be followed by United States courts, unless it is overruled by the supreme court of Missouri.

In equity. On motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction. The respondent, the St. Louis Shakspear Mining & Smelting Company, is a corporation organized under the laws of Illinois, and by its charter its principal office is declared to be in the city of East St. Louis, in the county of St. Clair, and state of Illinois. The bill alleges that all the stockholders and officers of the corporation were, at the time of the organization of the company, and still are, citizens of Missouri and residents of the city of St. Louis. The complainant claims to be a creditor of this corporation in the sum of $3,180, and brings this suit to compel the several stockholders to contribute ratably to the payment and satisfaction thereof. The bill contains the following averment:

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Complainant further states that this corporation respondent has ceased doing business, leaving the debt aforesaid due and unpaid; that it has no office or agent in the city of East

Eaton v. St. Louis Shakspear Mining & Smelting Co.

St. Louis, nor in the state of Illinois, nor is there any property anywhere belonging to said corporation out of which said debt, or any part of it, can be made."

The marshal's return as to service of summons on the corporation is as follows:

"I have executed this writ by delivering a copy thereof, together with the petition thereto attached, to Lorenzo Brown, secretary of the within named. St. Louis Shakspear Mining & Smelting Company, at the office of the secretary of said company, at 603 Washington avenue, in the city of St. Louis, in said district, on the fourteenth day of February, 1881, he being in charge of said office, and I being unable to find the president or other chief officer of said company in said district.”

The motion is to dismiss upon the ground that it appears from the record that the corporation respondent is neither a citizen of nor found in the district, within the meaning of the act of congress defining the jurisdiction of the circuit court of the United States, approved March 3, 1875.

Wickham & Robertson, for motion.

Dyer & Ellis, for complainant.

MCCRARY, Circuit Judge.-The respondent corporation was organized, under the law of Illinois, to carry on the business of mining, and is for jurisdictional purposes to be regarded as a citizen of that state. The motion to dismiss being before us for consideration, the important question is, whether such a foreign corporation can be sued in this court upon the ground that it has an office in the city of St. Louis for the transaction of its business, and upon service made at such office upon its secretary. We construe the return as showing that service was made upon the secretary at the office of the company in the city of St. Louis. The general question of the right of a creditor of a foreign corporation to sue such corporation in a federal court of any district in which it may have an office, and an officer or agent for the transaction of its general busi

Eaton v. St. Louis Shakspear Mining & Smelting Co.

ness, has been considered in the following, among other cases: Railway Co. v. Harris, 12 Wall. 65; Ex parte Schollenberger, 96 U. S. 369; Hayden v. Androscoggin Mills, 1 Fed. Rep. 93; Runkle v. Ins. Co. 2 Fed. Rep. 9; Brownell v. R. Co. 3 Fed. Rep. 761; Williams v. Transp. Co. 14 Off. Gaz. 523; Wilson Packing Co. v. Hunter, 7 Reporter (Boston), 455.

Railway Co. v. Harris was a suit brought in the supreme court of the District of Columbia against the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, a Maryland corporation. It was held that the corporation was found within the District of Columbia. The act of congress, upon the construction of which the question was decided, authorized the company to build a branch road into the District of Columbia, and provided as follows:

"And the said Baltimore & Ohio Railway Company are hereby authorized to exercise the same powers, rights and privileges, and shall be subject to the same restrictions, in the construction and extension of said lateral road into and within said district, as they may exercise or be subject to under or by virtue of the said act of incorporation, in the extension and construction of any railroad within the state of Maryland, and shall be entitled to the same rights, benefits and immunities in the use of said road, and in regard thereto, as are provided in said charter, except the right to construct any lateral road or roads in said district from said lateral road."

It was held that under this act, while there was but one corporation in Maryland and the District of Columbia, there was a unity of ownership throughout, and that the corporation might be sued in the District of Columbia for injuries done on its road outside of said district.

In Ex parte Schollenberger the facts were:

That a foreign corporation was transacting business in Pennsylvania under a statute which provided that the company should file a written stipulation agreeing that process issued in any suit brought in any court of the commonwealth having jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and served upon an agent

Eaton v. St. Louis Shakspear Mining & Smelting Co.

specified by the company to receive service of process for it, should have the same effect as if personally served upon the company within the state.

It was held in this case that a corporation may consent to be sued in a foreign state in consideration of its being permitted to carry on its business there, and accordingly it was held that such a corporation, doing business in Pennsylvania under said statute, was found there within the meaning of the act of congress. The decision is put distinctly upon the ground that the law of the state required foreign corporations to consent to be "found" there as a condition precedent to their being permitted to transact business in the state, and that the company in that case had so consented. These are the latest adjudications of the supreme court upon the subject.

In Hayden v. Androscoggin Mills, in the circuit court for the district of Massachusetts, Lowell, C. J., went further, and held that, independently of any local statute, a trading corporation is of right suable in a country in which it transacts an important part of its business.

Runkle v. Ins. Co. is in all respects like the case of Ex parte Schollenberger, and was decided upon the authority of that case, and under a similar statute.

In Wilson Packing Co. v. Hunter it was held by Drummond, C. J., that a Missouri corporation, owning and possessing a slaughter-house and stock-yard in East St. Louis, Illinois, where beef to be canned by said company was slaughtered and dressed for and in the name of the company, could be sued in the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of Illinois. The liability of such a corporation to be sued in Illinois it was held might be inferred from its right to do business in that state, although there was no express provision of law authorizing service upon it within that state.

In Williams v. Transportation Co., in the United States circuit court for the eastern district of New Jersey, it was held that a foreign corporation, without charter from a state, but transacting business therein and amenable to process of its