International Textbook Co. v. Pigg

Citations

• 217 U.S. 91
• 30 S. Ct. 481
• 54 L. Ed. 678
• 1910 U.S. LEXIS 1946
• 3 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 2817

Syllabus

<p>The reasonable construction of a state statute relating to foreign corporations doing business within the State does not include the doing of a single act or the making of a single contract, but does include a continuous series of acts by an agent continuously within the State. Cooper Manufacturing Company v. Ferguson, 113 U. S. 727.</p> <p>A foreign corporation engaged in teaching by correspondence and which continuously has an agent in a State securing scholars and .receiving and forwarding the money obtained from them, is doing business in the State; and such a corporation does business in Kansas within the meaning of § 1283 of the general statutes of that State of 1901.</p> <p>Commerce is more than traffic; it is intercourse, and the transmission of intelligence among the States cannot be obstructed or unnecessarily encumbered by state legislation. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 96 U. S. 1.</p> <p>Intercourse or communication betjveen persons in different States through the mails and otherwise, and relating to matters of regular continuous business, such as teaching by correspondence, and the making of contracts relating to the transportation thereof, is commerce among the States within the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution.</p> <p>A state statute which makes it- a condition precedent to a foreign corporation engaging in a legitimate branch of interstate commerce to obtain what practically amounts to a license to transact such business is a burden and restriction upon interstate commerce and as such is unconstitutional under the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution; and so held as to the requirements of §.3283, General Laws of Kansas of 1901, when applied to a foreign corporation carrying on the business of teaching persons in that State by correspondence conducted from the State in which it is organized.</p> <p>Qucere how far a foreign corporation carrying on business in a State may clai