Old Wayne Mut. Life Assn. of Indianapolis v. McDonough

Citations

• 204 U.S. 8
• 27 S. Ct. 236
• 51 L. Ed. 345
• 1907 U.S. LEXIS 1525

Syllabus

<p>A statute of Pennsylvania provides: “No insurance company not of.this State, nor its agents, shall do business in this State until it has filed with the Insurance Commissioner of this State-a written stipulation, duly authenticated by the company, agreeing that any legal process affecting the company, served on the Insurance Commissioner, or the party designated by him, or the agent specified by. the company to receive service of process for said company, shall have the same effect as if served personally on the company within this State, and if such company should cease to maintain such agent in this State so designated such process may thereafter be served on the Insurance Commissioner.” An insurance company of Indiana issued a policy of insurance upon the 'life of á citizen of Pennsylvania, the beneficiaries being also citizens of that .Commonwealth. The' contract of insurance was made in Indiana without the insurance company having filed the stipulation required .by the local statute as to service of process upon the Insurance Commissioner of Pennsylvania. A suit was brought1 on the contract in a Pennsylvania court, process was served on the state Insurance Commissioner alone, a personal judgment taken against the insurance company, and suit brought on that judgment in an Indiana court. The company did some business in Pennsylvania which had no relation to the contract made in Indiana. Held, that:</p> <p>1.If the defendant had mo such actual legal notice of the Pennsylvania suit as would bring it into court, or if it did not voluntarily appear therein by an authorized representative, then the Pennsylvania court was without jurisdiction to render a personal judgment against 1 the company.</p> <p>2. The constitutional requirement that full faith and credit be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State is necessarily to be interpreted in connection with other provisions of the Constitution, and therefore no Stat