BAIN PEANUT COMPANY OF TEXAS ET AL.
v.
PINSON ET AL.

U.S. | 1931-02-24
No. 49
282 U.S. 499 Supreme Court of the United States (1931) Positive Treatment
Also reported at: 75 L. Ed. 482 · 51 S. Ct. 228 · 1931 U.S. LEXIS 23 · SCDB 1930-092
Cited by 69 cases

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Synopsis

The Supreme Court upheld a Texas statute permitting lawsuits against private corporations to be brought in any county where the cause of action arose, rejecting the Bain Peanut Company's challenge that the provision violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by allowing broader venue against corporations than against individuals. The Court held that states have broad discretion to establish different venue rules for corporations and individuals, as the difference does not deny equal protection so long as fundamental rights are protected by equally administered laws, and that the reasonable distinction reflects legitimate differences between corporate and individual business activities.

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Opinion of the Court
Mr. Justice Holmes

Mb. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion-of the Court.

The Bain Peanut Company, a corporation of Texas, was sued in Comanche County of that State, being the county in which the cause of action arose. Its-principal office was in Tarrant County, Texas. In due form it raised the question whether the statute of Texas (subdivision 24, Article -1830, R. S. 1911, now subdivision 23, Article 1995, R. S. 1925) that allowed suits against private corporations to be brought in any county in which the cause of action arose, was valid under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution when unincorporated individuals are assumed not to be “ subject to suit outside their domiciliary counties in a similar situation.” We understand the Supreme Court of the State to have upheld the constitutionality of the statute, although at first we were misled by the form of the order dismissing the application for a writ of error “ for want of jurisdiction.” A certificate from the Court-executed since the question of our jurisdiction was before us satisfies us that the form was adopted in compliance with the Court’s interpretation of a statute, and that while the Court was of opinion that the judgment sought to be brought up was correct 'in upholding the statute, yet, since it also regarded the opinion as incorrect in its declaration of the law, its duty was to adopt the above quoted form. The judgment below stood affirmed in fact against the fully stated objection of the appellant, and justice requires that the objection should be dealt with, although at first it seemed as if the Supreme Court was acting upon local grounds of procedure with which we have nothing to do, except when used as a cloak, which was not the case here.

Coming then to the merits, we are of opinion that the judgment was right. The interpretation of constitutional principles must not be too literal. We must remember that the machinery of government would not work if it were not allowed a little play in its joints. In deciding whether a corporation is denied the equal protection of the laws when its creator establishes a more extensive venue for actions against it than is fixed for private citizens, we have to consider, not a geometrical equation between a corporation and a man, but whether the difference does injustice to the class generally, even though it bear hard in some particular case, which is not alleged or proved here. Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., 197 U. S. 430, 434. Patsone v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 138, 144. This it is for the corporation to make out. The range of the State’s discretion is large. Armour & Co. v. North Dakota, 240 U. S. 510, 516, 517. The question seems to be answered by Cincinnati Street Ry. Co. v. Snell, 193 U. S. 30, 36, 37, which lays down that, if the protection of fundamental rights by equal laws equally administered is enjoyed, the Constitution does not forbid allowing one person to seek a forum from which another in the same class is excluded. But without asserting a universal proposition, it is obvious that there is likely to be such a difference between the business done by a corporation and that done by a private person that the State well may take .it into account when it nermits a corporation to be formed. That the provision in question-is reasonable is made more probable by the fact that it had been adopted and sustained not only in Texas but in other States. Grayburg Oil Co. v. Powell, 118 Texas 354; Lewis v. South Pacific Coast R. Co., 66 Cal. 209; Cook v. W. S. Ray Mfg. Co., 159 Cal. 694; Central Georgia Power Co. v. Stubbs, 141 Ga. 172; Begley v. Mississippi Valley Trust Co., (Mo.) 252 S. W. 84; Morrimac Veneer Co. v. McCalip, 129 Miss. 671, 683. We cannot say that it is not.

Order dismissing appeal vacated and judgment affirmed.

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Citator

Cited By (25 total)

  • Fla. Soc'y OF Ophthalmology v. Fla. Optometric Ass'n, 489 So. 2d 1118 (Fla. 1986)
    …inciples, rather than the direct operation or literal meaning of the words used, measure the purpose and scope of a provision. United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U.S. 452, 467, 52 S.Ct. 420, 424, 76 L.Ed. 877 (1932). See also Bain Peanut Co. v. Pinson, 282 U.S. 499, 501, 51 S.Ct. 228, 229, 75 L.Ed. 482 (1932) (“[t]he interpretation of constitutional principles must not be too literal”); Plante v. Smathers, 372 So. 2d 933, 936 (Fla.1979) (“[t]he spirit of the constitution is as obligatory as the written word”).…
    1 / 2
  • Greyhound Corp. v. Rosart, 124 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 3d DCA 1960)
    …equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution; that any difference between the venue of .actions against domestic and foreign corporations is based on real and substantial grounds. See Bain Peanut Co. v. Pinson, 282 U.S. 499, 51 S.Ct. 228, 75 L.Ed. 482. In its second question, that the trial judge should have transferred the cause to St. Johns County where the action accrued and where, it contends, it might properly have been brought, the appellant urges two propositio…
  • Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (U.S. 1964)
    …all always be entitled to the benefits ... of a proportionate representation of the people in the Legislature.” See the discussion in Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S., at 9-14. 372 U. S., at 378. As stated by the Court in Bain Peanut Co. v. Pinson, 282 U. S. 499, 501, “We must remember that the machinery of government would not work if it were not allowed a little play in its joints.” But cf. the discussion of some of the practical problems inherent in the use of multimember districts in Lucas v. Forty-Fou…

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