Kentucky Finance Corp. v. Paramount Exchange, 262 U.S. 544 (1923)

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Kentucky Finance Corporation v.

Paramount Auto Exchange
No. 17

Argued October 5, 1922
Decided June 11, 1923
262 U.S. 544

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE STATE OF WISCONSIN

Syllabus

1. A corporation which goes into a state other than that of its creation for the lawful purpose of repossessing itself, by a permissible action in her courts, of specific personal property unlawfully taken out of its possession elsewhere and fraudulently carried into that state is a person within the jurisdiction of that state within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, for all the purposes of that, undertaking, and entitled to the equal protection of the laws. P. 549.

2. As applied to such a case, a statute under which the foreign corporation, not domesticated or doing business in the state or having property there other than that so sought to be recovered, may be compelled, as a condition to the maintenance of its action, to send its officer, with its papers and books bearing on the matter in controversy, from its domicile to the state where the action is brought in order to submit to an adversary examination before answer, but which does not subject nonresident individuals to such examination, except when served with notice and subpoena within the state, and then only in the county where service is had, and which limits such examinations, in the case of residents of the state, individual or corporate, to the county of their residence, violates the Equal Protection Clause. Id.

171 Wis. 586 reversed.

Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin sustaining two orders, one for examination of the plaintiff before answer and the second striking out its complaint and dismissing its action for failure to comply with the first.