Harlan F. Stone

“ A mere contract is not a share of stock and when made with a corporation or association does not necessarily connote membership in it. A policy of insurance may be a contract whose terms purport to define completely the relationship and obligations of the parties. Here the policy, which was on its face a contract and nothing more, stipulated only for obligations to be performed by the insurer upon payment of the prescribed premium. The policy's stipulations contained no provision making the insured a member of the association or subjecting him to liability for assessment as such. ”

“ Every state has authority under the Constitution to establish laws through both its judicial and its legislative arms, which are controlling upon its inhabitants and domestic affairs. When it is demanded in the domestic forum that the operation of those laws be supplanted by the statute of another state, that forum is not bound, apart from the full faith and credit clause, to yield to the demand, and the law of neither can, by its own force, determine the choice of law for the other. ”

“ It is evident that if the constitutional authority of the Indemnity Company to stand in judgment for its absent members turns on their consent or their assumption of membership in the Company, respondents, who were not parties to the New York proceedings, may defend on the ground that they never became members because they have done no act signifying such consent or assumption. After an assessment has been lawfully levied on the members of a corporation, it is still open to any who were not parties to the assessment proceeding to defend on the ground that they never became stockholders. ”