Stephen Johnson Field

“ If a state permits a foreign corporation to do business within her limits, and at the same time provides that in suits against it for business there done, process shall be served upon its agents, the provision is to be deemed a condition of the permission; and corporations that subsequently do business in the state are to be deemed to assent to such condition as fully as though they had specially authorized their agents to receive service of the process. ”

“ The courts rendering them must have acquired jurisdiction over the party by personal service or voluntary appearance, whether the party be a corporation or a natural person. There is only this difference: A corporation, being an artificial being, can act only through agents, and only through them can be reached, and process must, therefore, be served upon them. In the state where a corporation is formed it is not difficult to ascertain who are authorized to represent and act for it. ”

“ Without considering whether authorizing service of a copy of a writ of attachment as a summons on some of the persons named in the statute-a member, for instance, of the foreign corporation, that is, a mere stockholder-is not a departure from the principle of natural justice mentioned in Lafayette Ins. ”

“ A corporation of one state cannot do business in another state without the latter's consent, express or implied, and that consent may be accompanied with such conditions as it may think proper to impose. ”

“ They can act by themselves, and upon them process can be directly served, but a corporation can only act and be reached through agents. Serving process on its agents in other states, for matters within the sphere of their agency, is, in effect, serving process on it as much so as if such agents resided in the state where it was created. ”

“ They require that the writ issued to the sheriff, or other officer by whom it is to be served, shall direct him to attach the property of the defendant, and to summon him if he be found within the county, and also to serve on him a copy of the attachment and of the inventory of the property attached. They also declare that where a copy of the writ of attachment has been personally served on the defendant the same proceedings may be had thereon in the suit in all respects as upon the return of an original writ of summons personally served where suit is commenced by such summons. ”

“ This action was brought by the plaintiff in the court below to recover the amount due on two promissory notes of the defendants, each for the sum of $2,500, bearing date on the second of August, 1877, and payable five months after date, to the order of the Winthrop Mining Company, at the German National Bank, in Chicago, with interest at the rate of 7 per cent. per annum. ”