To condemn without a hearing is repugnant to the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Courts of one state cannot, without violating the due process
clause, extend their authority beyond their jurisdiction so as to
condemn the resident of another state when neither his person nor
his property is within the jurisdiction of the former.
Pennoyer
v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714.
A corporation, no more than an individual, is subject to be
condemned without a hearing in violation of the due process clause,
and the mere fact that one who is a director, but who is not a
resident agent, of a foreign corporation resides within a state
does not give the courts
Page 237 U. S. 190
of that state jurisdiction over a corporation which is not doing
business and has no resident agent therein. This applies to a
judgment even though, by implied reservation, its effect is limited
to the confines of the state.
Wherever a provision of the Constitution is applicable, the duty
to enforce it is all-embracing and imperative. Due process cannot
be denied in fixing, by judgment, against one beyond jurisdiction
of the court, an amount due even though the enforcement of the
judgment be postponed until execution issue.
The fact that a judgment rendered without due process of law may
not, under the full faith and credit clause, be enforced in another
state affords no ground for the court entering a judgment without
jurisdiction in violation of due process of law.
The facts, which involve the validity under the due process
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of a judgment against a foreign
corporation not doing business within the state, are stated in the
opinion.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in error, a corporation called hereafter the
Riverside Mills, was sued, in North Carolina by the defendant in
error, a resident of that state, to recover for personal injuries
alleged to have been suffered by him while working in Virginia as
an employee in a cotton mill operated by the Riverside Mills. The
summons directed to the corporation was returned by the sheriff
served as follows: "By reading and leaving a copy of the within
summons with Thos. B. Fitzgerald, a director of the defendant
corporation." The Riverside Mills filed a special appearance and
motion to dismiss in which it prayed for the striking out of the
return of service for the reason that
Page 237 U. S. 191
"the defendant is a foreign corporation, not doing business in
North Carolina, and has not been domesticated, and has no agent
upon whom service can be made, and that the service of the summons
is invalid and does not amount to due process of law as against
this defendant."
This motion was supported by an affidavit of a person styling
himself secretary and treasurer of the company, stating the facts
to be that the corporation was a Virginia one, had its place of
business in Virginia, carried on its factory there, had never
transacted business in North Carolina, had no property there, and
that the person upon whom service was made, although he was a
director of the corporation and was a resident of North Carolina,
had never transacted any business in that state for the
corporation. The motion to strike out was refused, although the
court found the facts to be in accordance with the statement made
in the motion and in the affidavit. The defendant answered. There
was a trial to a jury, and despite the insistence upon the
invalidity of the summons, there was a verdict against the
Riverside Mills to which it prosecuted error to the Supreme Court
of North Carolina. For the purpose of that review, an agreed case
was made in which the facts were found to be as stated in the
affidavit supporting the motion to strike out, and in considering
the case, the court below, stating the same facts, reviewed the
ruling of the trial court upon that premise.
Coming first to consider the statutes of North Carolina and
various decisions of that state construing and applying them, the
court held that, as the plaintiff was a resident of the state, and
the director upon whom the summons was served also resided in the
state, the summons was authorized, wholly irrespective of whether
the foreign corporation had transacted any business in the state,
had any property in the state, or whether the resident director was
carrying on business for the corporation in North Carolina or had
done so. The court came then to
Page 237 U. S. 192
consider decisions of this Court which it deemed related to the
question under consideration for the purpose of testing how far the
due process clause relied upon operated from a federal point of
view -- that is, the Constitution of the United States -- to
dominate and modify, if at all, the state rule. In doing so
reference was made to the ruling in
Goldey v. Morning
News, 156 U. S. 518, and
Conley v. Mathieson Alkali Works, 190 U.
S. 406, in the first of which it was held that there was
no basis for asserting jurisdiction as the result of service of
process on the president of a foreign corporation in a state where
he was temporarily present, and where the corporation did no
business, had no property, and where the president was transacting
no business for the corporation in the state where he was served,
and in the second of which, under like conditions, the same
conclusion was reached where the service was made on a director of
a foreign corporation residing in the state where the suit was
brought. After briefly reviewing these cases, which were both
decided in courts of the United States on removal from state
courts, and directing attention to the fact that, in the
Goldey case, it was observed,
"Whatever effect a constructive service may be allowed in the
courts of the same government, it cannot be recognized as valid by
the courts of any other government,"
and that the same observation was reiterated in the opinion in
the
Conley case, it was in effect decided that, from the
point of view of the Constitution of the United States, the due
process clause relied upon did not control the state law so as to
prevent the taking of jurisdiction under the summons for the
purpose of entering a judgment, whatever effect the due process
clause might have upon the power to enforce the judgment when
rendered. The court said:
"Under our decisions above quoted, and upon which the plaintiff
relied in bringing his action, the service is sufficient for a
valid judgment at least within our jurisdiction."
Concerning the judgment of affirmance
Page 237 U. S. 193
which it awarded, the court further said: "What opportunity or
method the plaintiff may have to enforce his judgment is not before
us now for consideration." Two members of the court dissented upon
the ground that the decisions of this Court, which were referred to
in the opinion of the court, clearly established that there was no
power to render the judgment, and that the same conclusion was
required as the result of the following additional cases in this
Court:
Old Wayne Life Association v. McDonough,
204 U. S. 8;
Kendall v. American Automatic Loom Company, 198 U.
S. 477;
Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company v.
Spratley, 172 U. S. 602;
St. Clair v. Cox, 106 U. S. 350;
Barrow Steamship Company v. Kane, 170 U.
S. 100;
Construction Co. v. Fitzgerald,
137 U. S. 98. To
the judgment thus rendered (161 N.C. 164) this writ of error was
prosecuted.
Was error committed in deciding that, consistently with the due
process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, there was jurisdiction
to enter against the defendant a money judgment, even although by
implied reservation its effect was limited to the confines of the
state, and the extent to which the judgment as so rendered was
susceptible of being executed was left open for future
consideration when the attempt to enforce the judgment would give
rise to the necessity for its solution?
That to condemn without a hearing is repugnant to the due
process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment needs nothing but
statement. Equally well settled is it that the courts of one state
cannot, without a violation of the due process clause, extend their
authority beyond their jurisdiction so as to condemn the resident
of another state when neither his person nor his property is within
the jurisdiction of the court rendering the judgment, since that
doctrine was long ago established by the decision in
Pennoyer
v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, and
has been without deviation upheld by a long line of cases, a few of
the leading
Page 237 U. S. 194
ones being cited in the margin.
* And that a
corporation, no more than an individual, is subject to be condemned
without a hearing, or may be subjected to judicial power in
violation of the fundamental principles of due process as
recognized in
Pennoyer v. Neff, is also established by the
cases referred to and many others.
Whatever long ago may have been the difficulty in applying the
principles of
Pennoyer v. Neff to corporations -- that is,
in determining when, if at all, a corporation created by the laws
of one state could be sued in the courts of another sovereignty,
because of the conception that, as an ideal, being, a corporation
could not migrate and its officers, in going into another
sovereignty, did not take with them their power to represent the
corporation -- such difficulty ceased to exist with the decision of
this Court rendered more than thirty years ago in
St. Clair v.
Cox, 106 U. S. 350,
which, together with the leading cases which have followed it, has
been already referred to. And the doctrine which they uphold with
virtual unanimity has been upheld by the courts of last resort of
most of the states in such a number of cases as to render their
citation unnecessary. Without restating the
St. Clair case
or the leading cases which have followed and applied it, we content
ourselves with saying that it results from them that it is
indubitably established that the courts of one state may not,
without violating the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, render a judgment against a corporation organized under
the laws of another state where such corporation has not come into
such state for the purpose of doing business therein, or has done
no business therein, or has no property therein, or has no
Page 237 U. S. 195
qualified agent therein upon whom process may be served, and
that the mere fact that an officer of a corporation may temporarily
be in the state or even permanently reside therein, if not there
for the purpose of transacting business for the corporation, or
vested with authority by the corporation to transact business in
such state, affords no basis for acquiring jurisdiction or escaping
the denial of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment which
would result from decreeing against the corporation upon a service
had upon such an officer under such circumstances. And this makes
clear why there is no ground for assuming that there was conflict
between the ruling in
Goldey v. Morning News, supra, where
it was held that jurisdiction could not be acquired over a
corporation of one state in another and different state by service
on the president of the corporation temporarily in such state, and
the ruling in
Conley v. Mathieson Alkali Works, supra,
that jurisdiction could not be acquired under the same
circumstances by service on a director permanently residing in the
other state, since both cases were rested upon the basis that not
the character of the residence, but the character and power of the
one served as an agent of the corporation, was the test of the
right to acquire jurisdiction.
It is self-evident that the application of these settled
principles establishes the error of the decision of the court below
unless is be that the distinction upon which the court acted be
well founded -- that is, that the enforcement of due process under
the Fourteenth Amendment was without influence upon the power to
render the judgment, since that limitation was pertinent only to
the determination of when and how the judgment, after it was
rendered, could be enforced. But this doctrine, while admitting the
operation of the due process clause, simply declines to make it
effective. That is to say, it recognizes the right to invoke the
protection of the clause, but denies its remedial
Page 237 U. S. 196
efficiency by postponing its operation, and thus permitting that
to be done which, if the constitutional guaranty were applied,
would be absolutely prohibited. But the obvious answer to the
proposition is that wherever a provision of the Constitution is
applicable, the duty to enforce it is imperative and all-embracing,
and no act which it forbids may therefore be permitted. If the
suggestion be that, although, under the jurisdiction which was
exerted, in form a money judgment was entered, as no harm could
result until the execution, therefore no occasion for applying the
due process clause arose, it suffices to say that the proposition
but assumes the issue for decision, since the very act of fixing by
judicial action without a hearing a sum due, even although the
method of execution be left open, would be, in and of itself, a
manifestation of power repugnant to the due process clause.
It is, however, unnecessary to pursue the subject from an
original point of view, since, in
Pennoyer v. Neff, supra,
among other things, it was said that
"proceedings in a court of justice to determine the personal
rights and obligations of parties over whom the court has no
jurisdiction do not constitute due process of law."
And see Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Spratley,
172 U. S. 602,
where these principles were treated as self-evident. It is true
that, in most of the decided cases, questions concerning judgments
rendered without a hearing under the circumstances here disclosed
have arisen from attempts to enforce such judgments in
jurisdictions other than the one wherein they were rendered,
presumably because the defense of want of due process was not made
until the judgments had been entered and an effort to enforce them
was made. But the fact that, because, unobservedly or otherwise,
judgments have been rendered in violation of the due process
clause, and their enforcement has been refused under the full faith
and credit clause, affords no ground for
Page 237 U. S. 197
refusing to apply the due process clause and preventing that
from being done which is by it forbidden, and which, if done, would
be void and not entitled to enforcement under the full faith and
credit clause. The two clauses are harmonious, and because the one
may be applicable to prevent a void judgment being enforced affords
no ground for denying efficacy to the other in order to permit a
void judgment to be rendered.
Reversed.
*
St. Clair v. Cox, 106 U. S. 350;
Freeman v. Alderson, 119 U. S. 185;
Wilson v. Seligman, 144 U. S. 41;
Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34;
Caledonian Coal Co. v. Baker, 196 U.
S. 432;
Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U.
S. 562;
Clark v. Wells, 203 U.
S. 164;
Hunter v. Mutual Reserve Life Ins. Co.,
218 U. S. 573.