doing business
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 205 U.S. 530 - Green v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co. · 1907Most cited · 979 citing opinions
solicitation alone
The business shown in this case was, in substance, nothing more than that of solicitation. Without undertaking to formulate any general rule defining what transactions will constitute 'doing business' in the sense that liability to service is incurred, we think that this is not enough to bring the defendant within the district so that process can be served upon it.
How the Supreme Court has restated “doing business”
Each Supreme Court definition of “doing business,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “doing business”
Court decisions citing the 8 opinions that defined “doing business” — 3,917 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 8 definitions, chronological · 1907–1933
- ORIGINAL
It is settled by the decisions of this court that foreign corporations can be served with process within the state only when doing business therein, and such service must be upon an agent who represents the corporation in its business.
foreign corporation
- 1913·227 U.S. 218 - St Louis Southwestern Railway Company of Texas v. Robert Alexander[p16]· cited 586×
In a general way it may be said that the business must be such in character and extent as to warrant the inference that the corporation has subjected itself to the jurisdiction and laws of the district in which it is served, and in which it is bound to appear when a proper agent has been served with process.
foreign corporation
The fair test to be derived from a consideration of all of them is between a corporation which has reduced its activities to the owning and holding of property and the distribution of its avails, and doing only the acts necessary to continue that status, and one which is still active and is maintaining its organization for the purpose of continued efforts in the pursuit of profit and gain, and such activities as are essential to those purposes.
Corporation Tax Act
A foreign corporation is amenable to process to enforce a personal liability, in the absence of consent, only if it is doing business within the state in such manner and to such extent as to warrant the inference that it is present there. And even if it is doing business within the state, the process will be valid only if served upon some authorized agent. ... Obviously the sale by a local carrier of through tickets does not involve a doing of business within the state by each of the connecting carriers. If it did, nearly every railroad company in the country would be 'doing business' in every state.
foreign corporation jurisdiction
The mere provision for a place of payment in the city of New York of the bonds and the coupons annexed to them, at their maturity, and their payment at such place, was in no true sense the carrying on by the corporation in New York of the business which it was chartered to carry on, however much it may have been an agreement by the corporation to pay in New York an obligation resulting from the carrying on by it of its business in the state of Ohio.
jurisdiction over foreign corporation
A foreign corporation is amenable to suit to enforce a personal liability if it is doing business within the jurisdiction in such manner and to such extent as to warrant the inference that it is present there.
The business must be of such nature and character as to warrant the inference that the corporation has subjected itself to the local jurisdiction, and is by its duly authorized officers or agents present within the state or district where service is attempted.
foreign corporation