Harlan F. Stone

“ It is a salutary principle of judicial decision, long emphasized and followed by this Court, that the burden of establishing the unconstitutionality of a statute rests on him who assails it, and that courts may not declare a legislative discrimination invalid unless, viewed in the light of facts made known or generally assumed, it is of such a character as to preclude the assumption that the classification rests upon some rational basis within the knowledge and experience of the legislators. ”

“ But this Court has said that not every legislative discrimination between foreign and domestic corporations is permissible merely because they differ, and that with respect to some subjects of legislation the differences between them may afford no reasonable basis for the imposition of a statutory restriction upon foreign corporations, not applied to domestic corporations. The ultimate test of validity is not whether foreign corporations differ from domestic, but whether the differences between them are pertinent to the subject with respect to which the classification is made. ”

“ There is no showing that the situation of foreign corporations, writing casualty insurance contracts in Indiana, is so similar to that of domestic corporations as to preclude any rational distinction between them as regards the time required for negotiating settlements of claims and the determination whether suits upon them should be prosecuted within or without the state. Where the record is silent, we cannot presume to declare that there is such similarity, or to say that a state is prohibited from making any distinction in the length of time within which suit must be brought. ”