Kernchen Co. v. English

Superior Court of Pennsylvania
Kernchen Co. v. English, 70 Pa. Super. 293 (1918)
1918 Pa. Super. LEXIS 234
Head, Henderson, Kephart, Orlady, Porter, Trexler, Williams

Kernchen Co. v. English

Opinion of the Court

Opinion by

Porter, J.,

The plaintiff is a corporation of the State of Illinois, and the owner of a patent covering a certain kind of ventilator. This action is brought to recover the price of three of said ventilators averred to have been sold by the plaintiff to the defendants. The defendants are manufacturers having a factory in the City of Philadelphia, and for several years had, in that city, been making the ventilators for the plaintiff and shipping them to such places, in Pennsylvania and other states, as were designated by the plaintiff. It is very clear that, although the owner of the patent was an Illinois corporation, the manufacture of the ventilators in the State of Pennsylvania and the sale thereof within this State did not involve interstate commerce. The plaintiff paid to the defendants a price agreed upon for manufacturing the ventilators and then sold them to parties in the State of Pennsylvania and elsewhere at such prices as it saw fit. The three ventilators involved in this particular transaction were manufactured in Philadelphia and were there sold to these defendants. The plaintiff, being *299a foreign corporation, bad not complied with tbe statutes requiring it to register in order to entitle it to do business in tbis State. Tbe opinion of Judge Davis, of tbe court below, in entering judgment in favor of tbe defendants non obstante veredicto, fully vindicates bis conclusion that tbe plaintiff was not entitled to recover and renders further discussion unnecessary.

Tbe judgment is affirmed.

Henderson and Head, JJ., dissent.

Reference

Cited By
2 cases
Status
Published
Syllabus
Corporations — Foreign corporations — Doing business — Interstate commerce — Failure to register. Where a foreign corporation owning patents on ventilators procures the manufacture of such ventilators in Pennsylvania, pays the manufacturer for the work, and sells the ventilators to parties in the State of Pennsylvania, at such prices as it sees fit, such sales do not involve interstate commerce; and if it appears that such foreign corporation maintains an office in Pennsylvania with its name on the door of the office where orders are received, and also keeps a stock of ventilators on hand in Pennsylvania for sale, and it also appears that the company is not registered in compliance with the Act of April 22, 1874, P. L. 108, the corporation has no standing to maintain an action in Pennsylvania to recover the price of ventilators sold in that State. In such a ease the burden of proving registration is upon the plaintiff.