Strain v. Chicago Portrait Co.

Citations

• 126 F. 831
• 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 5208

Syllabus

<p>1. Foreign Corporations — Service op Process on Agent — Validity.</p> <p>In general, where it is sought to bind a corporation by service of process on an agent or employs in another state, such agent or employe should sustain such relation to the matter, growing out of the character of his employment, as would impose on him the duty to report the fact to his principal or employer.</p> <p>¡3. Same — Missouri Statute — Agents on Whom Service may be Made.</p> <p>By the statute of Missouri, foreign corporations doing business in the state are required to file their articles of incorporation, establish an office or agency, and subject themselves in certain prescribed respects to the state laws; but corporations “entirely nonresident,” soliciting business through “drummers or traveling salesmen,” are expressly excepted. By a further provision service is authorized to be made in an action against a corporation having no office or agency by serving an agent of the company wherever found. Held that, in an action for malicious prosecution against a nonresident corporation having no office or agency in the state, valid service could not be made on one who was merely a solicitor of orders for goods which were sent to the company to be filled, who received a commission on such orders, and had no other relation to the company and no relation to the matter out of which the action arose, such poison not being an “agent” within the fair and reasonable meaning of the statute.</p> <p>¶ 1. Service of process on foreign corporations, see note to Eldred v. American Palace Car Co., 45 C. C. A. 3.</p> <p>¶ 2. See Corporations, vol. 12, Cent. Dig. § 2316.</p>