Travelers Health Association v. Commonwealth of Virginia State Corporation Commission/Dissent Minton

by Sherman Minton

United States Supreme Court

339 U.S. 643

Travelers Health Association  v.  Commonwealth of Virginia State Corporation Commission

 Argued: April 17, 1950. --- Decided: June 5, 1950

Mr. Justice MINTON, with whom Mr. Justice JACKSON joins, dissenting.

The State Corporation Commission of Virginia instituted the proceedings leading to the cease and desist order entered in the instant case under § 6 of the Virginia Securities Law. Michie's Va.Code 1942, § 3848(52). That section provides for service by registered mail upon persons or corporations offering securities through the mails or by other means of communication. After hearing, the Commission is authorized to issue the order and to give it such publicity as the Commission considers desirable.

In this case no action has been taken under § 15 of the Law which provides that violation of the statute is a misdemeanor and punishable by fine, or under § 17 which provides for the imposition of a fine upon failure to comply with a lawful order of the Commission. Michie's Va.Code, 1942, § 3848(61)(63). The Commission has in no way attempted to enforce the order issued by the Commission against appellants. Therefore appellants have not been hurt, and the question of due process is not reached. In the scheme of the statute, publicity appears to be the sole sanction of § 6. I know of no reason why Virginia may not go through this shadow-boxing performance in order to publicize the activities of appellants in Virginia and notify its citizens that appellants have not qualified under the Securities Law. That is all the Commission says that it is doing or has the power to do under § 6. The Commission's view of the nature of this proceeding-a view reiterated by Virginia in its brief on the appeal to this Court was stated in its opinion:

'Respondents rely on the fact that their contacts with citizens of Virginia are by mail, that they are not doinb business in Virginia and that they do not enter Virginia either personally or by agents. In setting up this defense they lose sight of the nature of this action. They are not charged with doing business in Virginia but with offering and advertising for sale and promoting the sale of insurance contracts in Virginia by mail and the action is to foreclose them from these activities. Whether the action will suffice to actually stop them is beside the point. It will suffice to put them on notice of pertinent laws of Virginia, to give them an opportunity to be heard and the state an opportunity to determine the facts, and, if, after hearing, a cease and desist order is issued, the Commission will then be authorized to give such publicity to the order as it sees fit for the 'information and protection of the public."

'No word found in or inference derived from Section 6, aforesaid, may properly, in our judgment, be said to impose penalties upon the respondents. * * *'

'There is no element of compulsion except such as may flow from a dread of the publicity attending such an order. In such cases, the only weapon available to the Commonwealth is to publicly advise that the securities of the respondent do not bear the stamp of the state's approval and are being presented to the public without regard to the regulatory laws enacted to protect them. Section 6, supra, imposes no penalties, exacts no direct toll from those against whom its orders proceed. * * *'

The question of substituted service on the Secretary of the Commonwealth is not here in any aspect. As far as appears, service in this manner is not authorized by the Virginia statutes except where the nonresident has opened and is conducting a place of business within the State. Michie's Va.Code, 1942, § 3848(55)a. Up to this date Virginia has not claimed the power to require appellants, who do business in Virginia only by mail, to appoint the Secretary of the Commonwealth as their agent for service of process, nor have the courts of Virginia rendered judgment in a suit where service was made in that manner. I do not understand, therefore, what possible application the Court's reference to substituted service on the Secretary of the Commonwealth could have in this case. I would answer the question of due process when Virginia has attempted to apply its process to appellants in a proceeding that has consequences of a nature which entitle a person to the protection of the Due Process Clause. See Parker v. Los Angeles County, 338 U.S. 327, 70 S.Ct. 161. I would, therefore, dismiss the appeal.

As stated, it seems to me that the majority opinion is saying that Virginia has more power than it claims in the instant proceeding. While Virginia has not attempted to do more than publicize the activities of appellants in the State, I read the majority opinion to intimate that under the service by registered letter Virginia might go further. The cease and desist order issued cannot validly compel appellants to designate the Secretary of the Commonwealth as their agent for service of process, any more than it can constitutionally be considered as automatically accomplishing that result. An in personam judgment cannot be based upon service by registered letter on a nonresident corporation or a natural person, neither of whom has ever been within the State of Virginia. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565; Old Wayne Mutual Life Ass'n of Indianapolis, Ind. v. McDonough, 204 U.S. 8, 22-23, 27 S.Ct. 236, 240, 241, 51 L.Ed. 345. If that may not be done directly, it may not be done indirectly. Certainly such service cannot be justified where its purpose is to make substituted service legal in the future. These non-residents cannot be brought in through service by registered mail and compelled to designate the Secretary of the Commonwealth as their agent for service of process so that thereafter service may be effected upon such non-residents by serving the Secretary. So to hold would allow the State to pull itself up by its own bootstraps.

Service by registered mail is said by the majority to be sufficient where the corporation has 'minimum contacts' with the state of the forum. How many 'contacts' a corporation or person must have before being subjected to suit we are not informed. Here all of appellants' contacts with the residents of Virginia were by mail. No agent of appellant corporation has entered the State, nor has the individual appellant. The contracts were made wholly in Nebraska. Under these circumstances, I would hold that appellants were never 'present' in Virginia.

'For the terms 'present' or 'presence' are used merely to symbolize those activities of the corporation's agent within the state which courts will deem to be sufficient to satisfy the demands of due process.' International Shoe Co. v. State of Washington, Office of Unemployment Compensation and Placement, 326 U.S. 310, 316-317, 66 S.Ct. 154, 158, 90 L.Ed. 95, 161 A.L.R. 1057.

As I understand the International Shoe Co. case, the minimum contacts which a corporation has in the State must be 'activities of the corporation's agent within the state.' There were such contacts by agents within the State in that case. Service was made, in addition to notice by registered letter, by personal service within the State upon one of those agents. Service on an agent within the jurisdiction would seem to me indispensable to a judgment against a corporation. It would seem to be an a fortiori proposition that judgment could not be obtained against a natural person who was not available for personal service.

We are not dealing here with the power of Virginia to regulate the transaction of insurance business with its citizens, as was the case in Osborn v. Ozlin, 310 U.S. 53, 60 S.Ct. 758, 84 L.Ed. 1074, and Hoopeston Canning Co. v. Cullen, 318 U.S. 313, 63 S.Ct. 602, 87 L.Ed. 777, 145 A.L.R. 1113. In the case at bar we are concerned only with how Virginia may enforce such power as it has. No question of the sufficiency of service was involved in either the Osborn or the Hoopeston cases, both of which were brought against some officer of a state. The question in those cases was whether the State had power, and not whether, having the power, it had also acquired jurisdiction of a defendant against whom a judgment could be rendered enforcing that power.

I would not attempt to instruct Virginia as to how to protect its citizens from these intruders from Nebraska. But I do not believe we should even intimate that judgments in personam may be obtained, by the simple process of sending a registered letter, against a corporation whose agents have never been in the forum where suit is brought, or against a natural person who is not personally served within the State.

Mr. Justice REED and Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, agreeing with the Court in reaching the merits, on the merits join this dissent.

Notes