United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Washington v. Superior Court, 289 U.S. 361 (1933)

Washington ex Rel. Bond & Goodwin & Tucker, Inc.

v. Superior Court of Washington for Spokane County

No. 663

Argued April 19, 1933

Decided May 8, 1933

289 U.S. 361

Syllabus

1. A state may provide, among the conditions upon which a foreign corporation may be admitted to do local business, that, if the corporation withdraw from the state and fail to maintain a local agency for receiving service of process, service may be made on a designated state official. P. 289 U. S. 364.

2. Failure to provide further for notifying the absent corporation of such substituted service does not make the statute obnoxious to due process, in the case of a corporation which entered the state by complying with the statute; since, by so doing, it accepted the statutory terms, and since, having withdrawn, it could have assured itself of notice by designating a new agent or otherwise. P. 289 U. S. 365.

3. The question whether, under a state statute providing for service on the Secretary of State, service may be made on the Assistant Secretary of State, is not a federal question. P. 289 U. S. 366.

4. State statutes providing that, as to domestic corporations having no local office, and as to foreign insurance companies, substituted service on the Secretary of State shall be valid only if he sends notice to the corporation so served, but making no provision for such further notice to other foreign corporations, do not deny to the latter the equal protection of the laws. P. 289 U. S. 366.

169 Wash. 688, 15 P. 2d 660, affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment refusing a writ of prohibition to prevent further prosecution of an action begun by substituted service.

Page 289 U. S. 362