State ex rel. Kimberlite Diamond Mining & Washing Co. v. Hodges

169 S.W. 942, 114 Ark. 155, 1914 Ark. LEXIS 605
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJuly 13, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 169 S.W. 942 (State ex rel. Kimberlite Diamond Mining & Washing Co. v. Hodges) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Kimberlite Diamond Mining & Washing Co. v. Hodges, 169 S.W. 942, 114 Ark. 155, 1914 Ark. LEXIS 605 (Ark. 1914).

Opinion

Wood, J.,

(after stating the facts). 1. The appellant contends that the part of the act quoted violates that part of the due process clause of the State and Federal Constitutions which provides that “no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law.”

The act itself is due process. It does not deprive the appellant of any property right or deny to the appellant the right to be heard in court as to any of its property rights. The act only requires the Secretary of State to revoke the authority of a foreign corporation or company to do business in the State when the facts exist making it his duty to exercise the power conferred upon him to revoke. If he exercises or attempts to exercise this power in the absence of the actual existence of the facts authorizing him to do so, his acts would be void and would not affect the authority of the foreign corporation to do business in the State. Such corporations could ignore all suela unauthorized acts on his part, and the courts would he open to them to restrain him from any threatened revocation or to annul as void any pretended revocation that he might make that was not based upon the existence of facts calling for the exercise of the authority. The act, therefore, does not deprive any foreign corporation of an opportunity to be heard concerning any right of property, and is not violative of the due process clause.

The demurrer admitted the existence of the facts alleged in the answer which made it the duty of the appel lee, under the statute, to revoke appellant’s license. Therefore, if it be conceded that appellant’s license to do business is in the nature of a property right, if the statute is otherwise valid, appellee was authorized and required by it to revoke appellant’s license to do business in this State, and in doing so has not deprived the appellant of any right of property without due process of law.

2. Section 11, article 12, of the Constitution of Arkansas, provides that foreign corporations “as to contracts made or business done in this State shall be subject to the same regulations, limitations and liabilities as like corporations of this State.”

This pirovision of the Constitution has reference, of course, to foreign corporations who have been licensed to do business, and who are making their contracts and conducting their business in pursuance of this license. In other words, to foreign corporations who ar.e propeaiy within the State in pursuance of its laws, and who have not forfeited their right to do business in the State by a violation of the law under which they were admitted. When a foreign corporation has ignored or violated the conditions of the act under which it is admitted, and under which it is permitted to conduct' any business in the State, and for which violation its license is required to be forfeited under the statute, then such corporation in the sense of the above provision can not thereafter be said to be doing business and making contracts within the State, and is not within the protection afforded by the above provision to foreign corporations who have been admitted and who are conducting their business according to the requirements of the statute under which they were admitted. In other words, a foreign corporation which has violated the provisions of the statute prescribed as conditions upon which it has been permitted to enter the State and to conduct its business is not in an attitude to •set up the unconstitutionality of the very law upon which is based the only right it has to be in the State at all.

The appellant was licensed to do business in the State after the passage of the act under consideration and the provisions of the act must be treated as a part of its license. Appellant took its license subject to the conditions which the statute imposes upon it. It accepted the license burdened with the concomitant conditions upon which a forfeiture of the same should be declared, and, having confessedly violated those conditions, will not be permitted to say, “that part of the act which granted me the license to enter the State is valid, but that part which imposes conditions, which I accepted, is. unconstitutional and void.”

In American Smelting Co. v. Colorado, 204 U. S. 103-111, it is said: ‘ ‘ Undoubtedly, if the corporation violated the laws, of the State properly applicable to it, or if otherwise, it gave just cause for its expulsion, it could not insist upon such a contract as a defense.”

Moreover, if the appellant could be considered a foreign corporation doing business in the State after it had violated the conditions of the act under which it was admitted, and after the revocation of its license, nevertheless, that act is not in conflict with the provisions of the Constitution under discussion, for it will be observed that the same “regulations, limitations and liabilities” therein mentioned relate to “contracts made or business done.” The institution of a suit or the removal thereof is neither the making of a contract nor the doing of business. See, Alley v. Bowen-Merrill Co., 76 Ark. 4.

The act therefore did not prescribe any regulations, limitations and liabilities “as to contracts made, or business done” by foreign corporations in this State. The constitutional provision, therefore, does not inhibit the enactment of a law prescribing regulations for instituting suits, or removing the same when instituted against them, applicable to foreign, but not to domestic, corporations.

3. Learned counsel for appellant insists that the act violates the equality clause of the Constitution, which provides, in part, “that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

A foreign corporation can not claim the benefit of the above provision after it has failed to comply with the conditions prescribed by the act under which it was. admitted into the State, and under which it is permitted to do business. Such foreign corporation, when it violates the terms of the act under which it is admitted, and after it has failed to comply with the conditions under which it alone is permitted to do business, is no longer entitled to the protection of the law guaranteed to persons who are conducting their business in compliance with the laws under which they exist and are permitted to do business. A foreign corporation which has violated the provisions of the law under which its license was granted, and which provisions, upon a failure to comply therewith, require the revocation of its license, can not, after such revocation, claim to be a person within the jurisdiction of the State, and entitled to the equal protection of her laws.

4. It is last contended by the learned counsel for appellant that the right of removal of a cause granted under the acts of Congress in pursuance to the provisions of the Constitution conferring judicial power, is a right vested in and to be enjoyed by every corporation, “anything in the Constitution and laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding,” and that the provisions of the act in question in regard to the removal of causes are violative of the Constitution of the United States, and the laws concerning the removal of causes passed in pursuance thereof.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
169 S.W. 942, 114 Ark. 155, 1914 Ark. LEXIS 605, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-kimberlite-diamond-mining-washing-co-v-hodges-ark-1914.