Court Opinion

ID: 9828264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:14:48.486099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:45.657675
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee, Keeland Bros., Inc., in its petition alleges that Shapleigh Hardware Company, Inc., is a foreign corporation without permit to do business in the state of Texas. It has filed its motion for rehearing and repeats such allegations, seemingly contending that because appellant was a foreign corporation doing business in Texas without a permit, the suit brought by it was wrongfully brought, and that such wrongful act entitled appellee to recover from appellant the items awarded to it by the trial court and eliminated by the judgment of this court.
If such be appellee’s contention, it is overruled. The undisputed facts show that Shapleigh Hardware Company, Inc., appellant, is a Missouri corporation; that it has its salesmen or drummers in Texas, who take orders from customers and send them in to the Missouri office to be filled. When such orders are accepted the goods are forwarded to the purchaser in Texas.
In the present case it is shown that one of appellant’s agents sent in an order directing appellant to ship tq Keeland Bros., Inc., certain merchandise. Such transactions have been repeatedly held by the courts to be interstate commerce.
 “The state, however, has no power to legislate upon the subject of interstate commerce, nor to place any restrictions upon it; and, in so far as the statute has such effect, it is void.” Miller & Co. v. Goodman, 91 Tex. 41, 40 S. W. 718, 719, and cases there cited.
“The employment of an agent in this state by a foreign corporation to secure orders for goods to be shipped here from another stato is interstate commerce, and the' corporation is not required to obtain a permit.” French, Finch & Co. v. Hicks (Tex. Civ. App.) 92 S. W. 1034.
“A foreign corporation employing traveling agents in the state to solicit orders for merchandise, and shipping into the state merchandise to fill the orders, is engaged in interstate commerce, and is not within Rev. Oiv. St. 1911, arts. 1314, 1318 [now art. 1529 et seq.], requiring foreign corporations to obtain a permit to transact business in the state.” Erwin et al. v. E. I. DuPont de Nem-ours Powder Co. et al. (Tex. Civ. App.) 156 S. W. 1097.
Corporations can sue on interstate shipments, because such is interstate commerce. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Davis, 93 'Tex. 378, 54 S. W. 381, 55 S. W. 562; Maury-Cole Co. v. Lockhart Grocery Company (Tex. Oiv. App.) 173 S. W. 262, 263; Geiser Mfg. Co. V. Gray, 59 Tex. Civ. App. 617,126 S. W. 610; *514Stein Double Cushion Tire Company v. Wm. T. Pulton Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 159 S. W. 1013; P. L. Shaw Co. v. Dalton Adding Machine Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 211 S. W. 833; Watkins Medical Co. v. Johnson (Tex. Civ. App.) 162 S. W. 394.
In Maury-Cole Co. v. Dockhart Grocery Co., supra, it is said: “A sale of goods by a foreign corporation to parties within this state, notwithstanding the orders may be taken direct through the instrumentality of their drummers traveling in this state, constitutes interstate commerce, and is not subject to the regulations prescribed by the foregoing articles of said chapter.”
In 19 Cyc. 1230, it is said: “Sales of goods ■by a corporation situated without a state, to a resident of the state, even though made through traveling salesmen or agents sent into the state, to be shipped to him into the state, belong to the operations of interstate commerce, and are consequently not subject to a prohibition of the state Constitution or statute against foreign corporations doing business within the state without having an agent or place of business therein, or otherwise subject to prohibition or regulation by the state.”
At page 1272, Id., subd. 6, it is said: “Statutes of the kind under consideration have no application to the case where a corporation sends into the restricting state its traveling agent, who solicits orders for its goods and forwards them, subject to approval, to the home office, the orders being afterwards filled by shipments to the customer. Such an application of the statute would be inadmissible in so far as state statutes are concerned, because, so applied, it would have the effect of imposing a restraint upon commerce between the states or with foreign countries.”
In E. L. Shaw Co. y. Dalton Adding Machine Co., supra, it is held that: “A foreign corporation manufacturing its products in another state, and selling them in Texas through the medium of soliciting or sales agents upon written orders forwarded to the factory in the other state was engaged in interstate commerce, and was not transacting business in Texas,- and, in order to maintain suit to enforce rights growing out of such sales, need not obtain a permit under Vernon’s Sayles’ Ann. Civ. St. 1914, arts. 1314, 1315.”
In the motion for rehearing it is stated that we erred in not making disposition of the box of guns involved in the suit.
There is no conceivable merit in such contention. The box of guns was tendered into court to be delivered to the plaintiff in the suit, defendant declaring he had no ownership thereof, but asserting a lien thereon to satisfy the judgment in its favor. It clearly follows from the judgment rendered by this court that the box of guns is the property of appellant and that it is subject to the demands of appellant upon its payment of the amount adjudged against it by this court, including the cost incurred in the trial court?.
The motion is overruled.