Title: Meunerie Sawyervillle, Inc. v. Birt

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

MEUNERIE_SAWYERVILLE_INC_V_BIRT.93-029; 161 Vt. 280; 637 A.2d 1082

[Filed 14-Jan-1994]

 NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
 Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
 Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                 No. 93-029


 Meunerie Sawyerville, Inc.                   Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
      v.                                      Essex Superior Court

 Richard and Christine Birt                   June Term, 1993



 Walter M. Morris. Jr., J.

 David C. Drew, Lyndonville, for plaintiff-appellant

 Peter J. Morrissette, St. Johnsbury, for defendants-appellees

 Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and William H. Rice, Assistant
 Attorney General, Montpelier, for amicus State of Vermont



 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.



      JOHNSON, J.     The issue before the Court is whether 11 V.S.A. {
 2120(a) requires a foreign corporation engaging in interstate and intrastate
 commerce to register to do business in this state as a prerequisite to
 filing suit on a contract in this state's courts.  We hold that where the
 corporation's intrastate activities are incidental to the interstate
 activities, the transaction is one in interstate commerce and thus the
 Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution protects the foreign
 corporation from application of 11 V.S.A. { 2120(a).  Consequently, we

 

 reverse the judgment of the trial court granting defendants' motion to
 dismiss the plaintiff's action for the unpaid balance on feed sales.
        Plaintiff is a Canadian corporation.  The trial court found that
 plaintiff's business dealings in Vermont began with a visit by its
 president to defendants' farm to solicit an agreement to provide defendants
 with cattle feed "from time to time upon their request."  Most of the orders
 thereafter were placed by telephone to plaintiff in the Quebec.  Some orders
 were placed with plaintiff's drivers when feed orders were delivered.  An
 agent of plaintiff visited with farmers in Vermont and New Hampshire
 "generating sales and providing forage analyses and nutrition consultation
 on behalf of Plaintiff relating to prospective and existing customers."  The
 feed sold to defendants was produced entirely in Quebec and transported to
 Vermont by plaintiff's drivers.
      The trial court found that the contract was made in Vermont because the
 sale of grain was initiated and consummated here, and the expectation and
 agreement was that there would be an ongoing relationship for the purchase
 of grain.  It concluded that plaintiff "was transacting or doing business in
 the State and did not have a Certificate of Authority from the Secretary of
 State."  Because 11 V.S.A. { 2120(a) bars an unregistered foreign
 corporation from maintaining an action in state court on a contract made in
 Vermont, the trial court then analyzed the constitutionality of that
 statute under the Commerce Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, { 8, cl. 3.  The
 court concluded that the registration statute did not unreasonably burden
 interstate commerce.  Consequently, the trial court dismissed the action and
 the present appeal followed.

 

      Plaintiff argues that the court erred in holding that the contract was
 made in Vermont, because the last act essential to the completion of the
 various grain sales was the seller's acceptance, which occurred, for the
 most part, in Canada.  It further argues that, even if the contract was made
 in Vermont and it was "doing business" in Vermont, the international sale
 and delivery of goods is a transaction in interstate commerce, excepted from
 state registration statutes under the Commerce Clause of the United States
 Constitution.
      The question of the locus of the contract is one of fact.  See West-
 Nesbitt v. Randall, 126 Vt. 481, 484,