Court Opinion

ID: 9841918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:11:09.139628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:16.510750
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Holmes,
dissenting.
In order to enter into most of the relations of life people have to give up .some of their Constitutional rights. If a man makes a contract he gives up the Constitutional right that previously he had to be free from the hamper that he puts upon himself. Some rights, no- doubt, a person is not allowed to renounce, but very many he may. So we must go further than merely to point to the Fourteenth Amendment. I see nothing in it to prevent a foreign corporation agreeing with the State that it will be subject to the general law of torts and will submit to a transitory action wherever it may be sued. That the *498venue for suits against domestic corporations is limited by statute seems to me not enough to invalidate its assent. Every contract is the acceptance of some inequality — and under our decisions I think it cannot be denied that the plaintiff in error did contract. Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Co. v. Gold Issue Mining & Milling Co., 243 U. S. 93, 96. The jurisdiction of the Court would have been unquestionable if it had not been objected to, and I do not see why consent could not be manifested by contract as well as by silence. While we adhere to the rule that a State may exclude foreign corporations altogether it seems to me a mistake to apply the inequality clause of the Fourteenth Améndment with meticulous nicety. The Amendment has been held not to overthrow ancient practices even when hard to reconcile with justice. I think there are stronger grounds for not reducing the power of the States to attach conditions to a consent that they have a right to refuse, when there is no attempt to. use the conditions to invade forbidden fields.
Apart from the contract of the corporation there seems to me a ground for discrimination that ought to be respected when it has satisfied the State. A statute has to be drawn with reference to what is usual and probable. A foreign corporation merely doing business in the State and having its works elsewhere will be more or less inconvenienced by being sued anywhere away from its headquarters, but the difference to it between one county and another is likely to be less than it will be to a corporation having its headquarters in the State. So I repeat that in my opinion the plaintiff in error cannot complain if the State holds it. liable to a transitory action wherever it may be served and sued, as it would have been liable at common law.
Mr. Justice Brandéis concurs in this opinion.