Allgeyer v. Louisiana

165 U.S. 578 (1897)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

The State of Louisiana has an article 236 in its Constitution, which reads as follows: No foreign corporation shall do any business in this state without having one or more known places of business and an authorized agent or agents in the state upon whom process may be served. Apparently, someone violated that provision by sending a contract into the state from New York. The State of Louisiana claims that the defendants have violated the act of 1894 by doing an act in that state to effect for themselves insurance on their property then in that state in a marine insurance company. Louisiana claims that the violation consisted in the act of mailing a letter or sending a telegram to the insurance company in New York describing the cotton upon which the defendants desired the insurance under the open marine policy to attach. The Supreme Court of Louisiana conceded that the contract was a New York contract. The question presented is the simple proposition whether, under the act, a party while in the state can insure property in Louisiana in a foreign insurance company, which has not complied with the laws of the state, under an open policy -- the special contract of insurance and the open policy being contracts made and entered into beyond the limits of the state. The court held that such a contract is in violation of the laws of the state, and the defendants who made it were within the jurisdiction of the state, and must be necessarily subject to its penalties unless there is some inhibition in the federal or state constitution, or that it violates one of those inalienable rights relating to persons and property that are inherent, although not expressed, in the organic law. The court held that the law merely requires the citizens of New York engaged in insurance business must, like citizens of Louisiana, pay a license fee and have an authorized agent in the state as prerequisite to their doing said business within its state. The law also requires that Louisiana citizens may not contravene the public policy of the state in aiding and assisting in the violation of the laws of the state. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.