Black-Clawson Co. v. Carlyle Paper Co.

133 Ill. App. 61, 1907 Ill. App. LEXIS 211
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 15, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 133 Ill. App. 61 (Black-Clawson Co. v. Carlyle Paper Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Black-Clawson Co. v. Carlyle Paper Co., 133 Ill. App. 61, 1907 Ill. App. LEXIS 211 (Ill. Ct. App. 1907).

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Creighton

delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an action in assumpsit, in the Circuit Court of Clinton county, by appellant against appellee, to recover a balance of $1,151.79, claimed by appellant to be due it from appellee for machinery sold and delivered and work and material furnished. Trial by jury was waived, and the case was tried by the court without a jury, by agreement of parties, resulting in a finding and judgment in favor of appellee in ‘bar of the action and for costs.

The declaration is in form and substance the common counts, with an itemized bill of particulars attached. To the declaration a number of pleas were filed, but the questions raised on this appeal involve only two of them. One is a plea setting up that appellant was a foreign corporation, transacting business within this State, that it had not complied with our statute in relation to such corporations, • and that it had no certificate from the Secretary of State authorizing it to do business within the limits of this State. The other is a plea of accord and satisfaction.

Appellant was a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Ohio, engaged in the manufacture and sale of paper mill machinery; its offices and factory were at Hamilton, Ohio, and it had no office or place of business, nor any agency or agent within the State of Illinois. Appellee was a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Illinois, engaged in the manufacture- of paper at Carlyle, Illinois. Appellant company got into communication with appellee company by means of a letter written by appellee to appellant in which it was stated that appellee would like to see appellant in regard to some paper mill machinery. In response to this letter appellant sent its sales manager to Carlyle, and he entered into negotiations with appellee, resulting in a contract whereby appellant agreed to furnish a large number of machines and appliances for the equipment of appellee’s mill, same to be delivered free on board cars at Hamilton, Ohio, appellee to pay the freight- The contract also provides that appellant “will furnish the time of a competent man to superintend and assist in the erecting of the machinery at appellee’s mill, appellee to pay his traveling expenses and board while on the job, appellee to furnish him with all necessary help at its expense, to facilitate the work; time of man to be limited to thirty days from the time he should leave appellant’s shops until he should return; after this time appellee to pay appellant for his time at the rate of fifty cents per hour.” The contract price which appellee agreed to pay was $13,500. The contract was written up and signed at Carlyle. The machines and appliances, consisting of about ten carloads, were delivered and the man to superintend and assist in erecting the machinery followed and performed the specified services. The evidence disclosed that appellant had furnished some other machinery to parties in Illinois since 1899.

Section 67b and a number of fpllowing sections of chapter 32, Hurd’s Statutes, 1905, provide,,“that before any foreign corporation for profit shall be permitted or allowed to transact any business, or exercise any of its corporate powers in the State of Illinois, * * * ,” such corporation shall do a number of specified things, and procure a certificate from the Secretary of State authorizing it to transact business within this State. The statute provides certain penalties for its violation, and provides that in addition to such penalties, if any such corporation shall fail to comply with the statute, no suit may be maintained by it either at law or in equity upon any claim, legal or equitable, whether arising out of contract or tort, in any court in this State. It is admitted that appellant had not complied with the statute.

The question is, did appellant transact business in the State of Illinois, within the meaning of the statute. So far as the reported cases disclose, this statute has not often been before the courts of this State and the cases we have do not fully interpret the statute when applied to the particular facts of the case at bar. A large number of States have statutes in their main features substantially like ours, and in the aggregate there are scores of cases dealing with the question of what constitutes the transaction of business within the meaning of such statutes. We think all courts agree that these statutes must receive such construction and enforcement as will not interfere with interstate commerce, and almost all agree that the sale and delivery of goods or manufactured commodities, not properly subject to police surveillance, by a citizen or corporation of one State to a citizen or corporation of another State is interstate commerce. In Havens & Geddes Co. v. Diamond, 93 Ill. App., 557, it is held that where a foreign corporation manufactures goods in a foreign State, and sends drummers into this State who solicit and take orders in this State, and such orders are accepted and the goods consigned to the purchaser, this is not doing business in this State within the meaning of our statute regarding regulating foreign corporations. In Spry Lumber Company v. Chappell, 184 Ill., 539, it is said: “The John Pritzlaff Hardware Company, a corporation organized in the State of Wisconsin, had sold goods to the firm of Gregg Bros. & Campbell, in consequence of which they became indebted to it, and the amount of its judgment resulted from such sale and delivery of the goods. It had the right to invoke the aid of our courts in the collection of the debts due it.” On the other hand, in Union Cloak & Suit Co. v. Carpenter, 102 Ill. App., 339, it is held that a foreign corporation who sent its goods to its agent in this State, to be sold here, at retail, was doing business in this State, within the meaning of the statute. This case turned upon the fact that the goods were sent into this State by the owner, and here displayed and sold. Central Manufacturing Co. v. Briggs, 106 Ill. App., 417, turns upon the pleading. Appellee’s plea was good, appellant’s demurrer by which it elected to stand, confessed the truth of the plea, and judgment in favor of appellee followed, as matter of course. In J. Walter Thompson Co. v. Whitehed, 185 Ill., 454, appellant was a Hew Jersey corporation and at the time of instituting the suit and for four years previous thereto had maintained a branch office in this State and transacted business here, and the indebtedness sought to be recovered grew out of contracts entered into in this State. This, it is clear, was not interstate commerce. The above noted are all the Illinois cases bearing directly upon the question that we have been able to find.

It is suggested by counsel, that in this case the contract was signed in this State and that appellant furnished “the time” of a man to superintend and assist in erecting the machinery in this State. These two features, it is contended, make the transaction more and other than interstate commerce.

Cooper Manufacturing Co. v. Ferguson, 113 U S., 727, was a case which arose under a Colorado statute in substance the same as ours, with respect to the question here under consideration.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
133 Ill. App. 61, 1907 Ill. App. LEXIS 211, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/black-clawson-co-v-carlyle-paper-co-illappct-1907.