Court Opinion

ID: 9883451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 01:43:03.433767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:23.438925
License: Public Domain

Legge, Justice
(concurring).
*153By the express language of Section 12-722 of the 1952 Code, the authority of the Secretary of State to accept service of process on behalf of a foreign corporation doing business in this State without having complied with the provisions of Section 12-721 is limited to actions or proceedings against such corporation “growing out of the transaction of any business in this State.” That Section 10-424, relating to the same subject, does not expressly contain the same limitation, is immaterial. The three Sections, 12-721, 12-722 and 10-424, which constituted a single Section, Section 7765, in the 1942 Code, must be construed together.
The purpose of these provisions being the protection of those to whom the foreign corporation has become obligated on its transactions in South Carolina, we have upheld such service after the -corporation’s withdrawal from the State, where the cause of action had arisen here. Terry Packing Co. v. Southern Express Co., 125 S. C. 198, 118 S. E. 628.
But where the cause of action, as here, did not arise out of the corporation’s business within this State, the actual presence of the corporation, through agents in fact who may be personally served within this State, is essential to the jurisdiction. Old Wayne Mutual Life Ass’n of Indianapolis, Indiana v. McDonough, 204 U. S. 8, 27 S. Ct. 236, 51 L. Ed. 345; Simon v. Southern Railway Co., 236 U. S. 115, 35 S. Ct. 255, 59 L. Ed. 492; Lipe v. Carolina, etc., R. Co., 123 S. C. 515, 116 S. E. 101, 30 A. L. R. 248.
In Thompson v. Queen City Coach Co., 169 S. C. 231, 168 S. E. 693, 697, this Court said:
“We can reach no other conclusion than that, in order for a circuit court of this state to have jurisdiction in a case against a foreign corporation where the cause of action arises without the state, it must be shown that the corporation is ‘doing business’ within the state. To hold otherwise would be inconsistent with the principles conceded and enunciated in the Lipe case, which, we may add, is cited with approval in Hodges v. Lake Summit Co., 155 S. C. 436, 152 S. E. 658.”