Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/237/189/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 10:16:00+00:00

Document:
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.
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.
"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.
"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,"
"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."
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?
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
* 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.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.