RAILWAY EXPRESS AGENCY, INCORPORATED,
v.
VIRGINIA
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Railway Express Agency, a Delaware corporation, challenged Virginia's refusal to grant it a certificate of authority to conduct intrastate express business, arguing that the state's constitutional prohibition against foreign corporations engaging in intrastate business violated the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed Virginia's denial, holding that the state was not imposing an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce but merely requiring that a foreign corporation obtain a state charter to conduct local business, and that the Fourteenth Amendment claim was unfounded because the company retained all its rights and could simply incorporate under Virginia law if it wished to do intrastate business there.
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Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of .the Court.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia affirming an order of the Corporation Commission that denied to the appellant a certificate of authority to do an intrastate express business in Virginia. 153 Va. 498. The appellant was incorporated in Delaware, in December, 1928, and was given by its charter not only power to engage in international, interstate and intrastate express business* but other most extensive ones to own personal and real property and to engage in other collateral .undertakings. Its stock was to be owned by railroad corporations. It has bought the business and assumed the liabilities of the American Railway Express Company, and is an agency of railroads throughout the United States. The appellant’s right to do interstate business is not questioned, but it was held by the Supreme Court of Ajppeals that being-a foreign corporation created since the Constitution of the State went into effect in 1902, it was prohibited by that instru-' ment from doing intrastate express business by the plain words of section one hundred and sixty-three. The appellant says that so construed the prohibition is a direct burden upon the interstate commerce which is its principal business, and therefore is void. It also invokes the Fourteenth Amendment for some help. There is not here, as there was in Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1, and Pullman Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 56, a deliberate attempt to use the State’s powers as the means for attaining the unconstitutional result of taxing property outside the State. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Foster, 247 U. S. 105, 114. Virginia is not attempting to go beyond its power by indirection or to take anything from anybody. It simply is refusing to grant a foreign corporation a permit to transact local business without taking out a charter from the.jurisdiction within which that business must be done. There is no substantial evidence that the refusal would impose a burden on interstate commerce and it is presumed to be con-. stitufional. O’Gorman & Young, Inc. v. Hartford Fire Insurance Co., ante, p. 251. We may add that as suggested by the State Court the difficulties created by the Constitution of Virginia probably will not prove hard to overcome when it is found that they must be met.
The objection based on the Fourteenth Amendment is that the requirement of the Virginia Constitution deprives the appellant of its right to sue in the federal courts and to remove suits to them on the ground of diversity of citizenship. This plainly is inaccurate: The appellant is not deprived of any rights. It can do all that it ever could. If it sees-fit to acquire a new personality under the laws of Virginia it cannot complain that the new person has not the same rights as itself. Of course there can be no suggestion here that the clause in the State Constitution was adopted for a sinister end; And, unless it was, the inability of the new State corporation to do all that the appellant could have done is only the legitimate incident of a legitimate act.
Judgment affirmed.
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Cited By (12 total)
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Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 (U.S. 1947)…when the validity of a state statute is questioned on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. The section has been applied so as to cover a state constitutional provision. Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. Virginia, 282 U. S. 440; King Mfg. Co. v. Augusta, 277 U. S. 100. Constitution of California, Art. I, § 13: . . No person shall be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense; nor be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life…
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Davis v. Dep't of Labor & Indus. of the State of Wash., 317 U.S. 249 (U.S. 1942)…orp. v. Holyoke Ry. Co., 273 U. S. 45 (requirement of certificate of convenience and necessity for interstate carrier); Interstate Busses Corp. v. Blodgett, 276 U. S. 245 (state statute taxing interstate carrier); Railway Express Agency v. Virginia, 282 U. S. 440 (statute requiring corporation to hold local charter). For state commerce regulations approved by this Court, see the Barnwell case, supra, p. 188, n. 5.…
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Pruneyard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (U.S. 1980)…blished that a state constitutional provision is a “statute” within the meaning of § 1257 (2). See, e. g., Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 489 (1961); Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 48, n. 2 (1947); Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. Virginia, 282 U. S. 440 (1931). Here the California Supreme Court decided that Art. 1, §§ 2 and 3, of the California Constitution gave appellees the right to solicit signatures on appellants’ property in exercising their state rights of free expression and petition.2 In so…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- W. Union Tel. Co. v. The State of Kan. Ex rel. Coleman, 216 U.S. 1 (U.S. 1910)
- W. Union Tel. Co. v. Foster and MacLeod, 247 U.S. 105 (U.S. 1918)
- Pullman Co. v. State of Kan. Ex rel. Coleman, 216 U.S. 56 (U.S. 1910)