Page:Henry Osborn Taylor, A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations (5th ed, 1905).djvu/419

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PART V.] CITIZENSHIP OF A CORPORATION. [§ 412. state, and therefore entitled, for the purpose of suing and being sued, to be deemed a citizen thereof. It was accordingly held, that a citizen of one state could sue a corporation created by another in the Federal Circuit Court for the latter state, al- though some of the members were not citizens of the state where the suit was brought, and the state itself was a member of the corporation. The last case was followed, after some years, by Railway Co. v. Whitton, 1 where the court again held that although a corpo- ration, being an artificial body created by legislation, was not a citizen within the meaning of several provisions of the consti- tution, still where rights of action were to be enforced, it would be regarded as a citizen of the state where it was created, within the meaning of the clause extending the judicial power of the United States to controversies between citizens of differ- ent states. § 412. Railway Co. v. "Whitton was affirmed in Muller v. Dows, 2 though the reasoning of the court was somewhat modi- fied in the latter case ; where it was said that a corporation could not itself be a citizen of a state in the sense in which the word " citizen " is used in the Federal constitution. But they held that a suit might be brought in a Federal court by or against a corporation, and that in such a case the suit would be regarded as if brought by or against the shareholders, all of whom for jurisdictional purposes would be conclusively pre- sumed to be citizens of the state incorporating the corporation. 3 i 13 Wall. 270.

  • 94 IT. S. 444.

8 See St. Louis, etc., Ry. v. James, 161 U. S. 545; Barrow Steamship Co. v. Kane, 170 U. S. 100; Steamship Co. v. Tugman, 106 U. S. 118; Maltz v. Amer. Exp. Co., 1 Flip. 611. Un- der § 11, of the judiciary act of 1789, a corporation cannot be made a party defendant to a civil suit in a Federal Circuit or District Court by original process, in any other district than a district of the state by which it was created. Myers v. Dorr, 13 Blatchf. 22. A corporation by doing business in a state as permitted by the laws thereof, having a resident agent, etc., does not become a citizen of that state for the purposes of Federal jurisdiction. Insurance Co. v. Fran- cis, 11 Wall. 210; Martin v. R. R., 151 U. S. 673. See Brownell v. Troy, etc., R. R. Co., 18 Blatohf. 243; Callahan o. Louisville, etc., R. Co., 11 Fed. Rep. 536; Guinn v. Iowa Cent. Ry. Co., 14 Fed. Rep. 323. But see B. & O. R. R. Co. v. Wightman's Adm'r, 29 Gratt. (Va.) 431; Same v. NoeU's Adm'r, 32 Gratt. 394; Stout v. Sioux City, etc., R. R. Co., 3 McCrary, 1; N. Y. & Erie R. R. Co. v. Shepard, 5 McLean, 455. For instance, a railroad 399