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citation of Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168 and Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, with approval, in the case of National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Wanberg, 260 U. S. 71. If the rule of the Terral Case is to be extended to include every constitutional right, as appellant contends, then it seems likely that the application of the "equal protection of the laws" clause of the Constitution will create a perfect parity between foreign and domestic corporations resulting in the complete abrogation of the power of the States to regulate foreign corporations as such. Cf. Commonwealth v. Nutting, 175 Mass. 154.

The New Mexico statutes involved in this appeal do not in fact require the surrender of any constitutional right. At least twenty-seven States have resident agent laws containing compensation features similar to the New Mexico provision. It has long since been settled that a State, acting under its power to regulate the insurance business, may require a foreign insurance company doing business in the State to maintain a resident agent within its borders. The reason is not hard to discover. A responsible authorized local person must represent the company and execute its policies as a protection against fraudulent and worthless contracts. Moreover, in case of loss, change in rate of premium, mistake in the policy or bond, transfer of policy, change in risk, and the like, it is imperative that the citizen have access to some bona fide representative of the company with power to act, and bind his principal.

If the State possesses the power to insist upon a resident agent, it likewise possesses the power to make sure that he be a bona fide agent, and not a mere dummy or pretended agent. Probably the statutes in question do nothing more than define a bona fide resident agent, i. e., one who receives the commissions on business placed in the State. This requirement is not for the economic ad

vantage of the agent, but for the benefit of the public. Other States impose the requirement in their resident agent laws that the agent shall maintain his principal office within the State, as in New Jersey. It is a provision in aid of the law for the purpose of making sure the agent shall be a bona fide one. The New Jersey law, like the New Mexico law, in a measure defines what a resident agent must be,-in New Jersey he must be a man who actually has his principal office within the State, while in New Mexico he must be a man who collects the commission on the premium. Without these two salutary provisions, it would doubtless turn out that the so-called resident agents of New Jersey would be New Yorkers and the so-called resident agents of New Mexico mere figure heads who would countersign insurance policies and bonds at so much a signature. The issue, then, as appellees view it, resolves itself into this query; Granting that the State has a right to insist upon a resident insurance agent, can the State make such other reasonable requirements to insure that such resident agent shall be a bona fide one? The compensation requirement of the New Mexico statute is a fair means of insuring a bona fide resident agent and enforcing the law as a whole by rendering it impossible for the insurance company to circumvent the requirement by means of a mere dummy agent. Commonwealth v. Cutting, 175 Mass. 154; Ferguson v. Tuttle, 112 Atl. 596.

MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a bill in equity brought to prevent the State Corporation Commission of New Mexico from suspending the right of the plaintiff to do business in that State. A final decree was entered by which it was declared that the defendants intend to suspend that right " for the sole

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Opinion of the Court.

reason that the plaintiff has made payments to its agents in states other than New Mexico in connection with the procurement of business made, written and placed by the plaintiff in New Mexico"; that such payments are unlawful by virtue of § 2820 of the New Mexico Code of 1915, as amended by Chapter 195 of the Laws of 1921, and that the section, so far as it makes such payments unlawful and authorizes the suspension because of this, is constitutional. On this ground the bill was dismissed. The plaintiffs, contending that the statute as construed and applied is contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment, appealed to this Court.

to pay,

The statute in question, § 2820 of the Code of 1915 as amended in 1921, purports to make it "unlawful for any insurance company authorized to do business in New Mexico either directly or indirectly, any fee, brokerage or other emolument of any nature to any person, firm or corporation not a resident of the State of New Mexico, for the obtaining, placing or writing of any policy or policies of insurance covering risks in New Mexico. Any insurance company violating this section shall have its certificates of authority to do business in the State suspended for not less than one year"-the suspension to be removed only upon a written pledge that the section will be observed. This section has been repealed by an act of 1925, which substitutes the more moderate requirement that the policy must be delivered, the premium collected and the full commission retained by an agent in New Mexico, with authority to that agent to employ a licensed non-resident broker to collect the premiums, &c., and to pay him within limits. The question has been suggested whether this repeal does not require us to dismiss the case. But the Constitution of New Mexico provides that 'no act of the Legislature shall affect the right or remedy of either party in any pending case.' It is at least

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possible that the state courts might hold that the plaintiff was still liable to lose its license on the old ground. Therefore it seems to us just that we should proceed to deal with the further questions raised, as both parties desire.

It is suggested that the District Court had no jurisdiction because the bill does not allege that the statute is unconstitutional, but only that the statute as construed and applied by the defendants is so. But even if the statute did not plainly purport to justify and require the threatened action, or if the bill fairly taken did not import a denial of the constitutionality of the law as applied to this case, the plaintiff still would be entitled to come into a Court of the United States to prevent such an alleged violation of its constitutional rights. Raymond v. Chicago Traction Co., 207 U. S. 20. Home Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Los Angeles, 227 U. S. 278. Cuyahoga River Power Co. v. Akron, 240 U. S. 462.

Coming then to the merits, we assume in favor of the defendants that the State has the power and constitutional right arbitrarily to exclude the plaintiff without other reason than that such is its will. But it has been held a great many times that the most absolute seeming rights are qualified, and in some circumstances become wrong. One of the most frequently recurring instances is when the so-called right is used as part of a scheme to accomplish a forbidden result. Frick v. Pennsylvania, 268 U. S. 473. American Bank & Trust Co. v. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 256 U. S. 350, 358. Badders v. United States, 240 U. S. 391, 394. United States v. Reading Co., 226 U. S. 324, 357. Thus the right to exclude a foreign corporation cannot be used to prevent it from resorting to a federal court, Terral v. Burke Construction Co., 257 U. S. 529; or to tax it upon property that by established principles the State has no power to tax, Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1, and

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Opinion of the Court.

other cases in the same volume and later that have followed it; or to interfere with interstate commerce, Sioux Remedy Co. v. Cope, 235 U. S. 107, 203; Looney v. Crane Co., 245 U. S: 178, 188. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Foster, 247 U. S. 105, 114. A State cannot regulate the conduct of a foreign railroad corporation in another jurisdiction, even though the Company has tracks and does business in the State making the attempt. New York, Lake Erie & Western R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 153 U. S. 628, 646.

The case last cited was one of an attempt to regulate the corporation's payments in another State. By the same principle on even stronger grounds the corporation cannot be prevented from employing and paying those whom it needs for its business outside the State. The difficulty was fully appreciated by the counsel for the appellee and he therefore sought to limit the generality of the words, at least in the case of agents, and to make out that the object was to prevent the use of dummy agents in the State. It was suggested that agents were paid by commissions at well known conventional rates, and that the statute meant to forbid the dividing of these commissions, and in that way to prevent the work being done and paid for elsewhere, while nominal agents in New Mexico were paid small sums for the use of their names. In short, it is said the purpose was to secure responsible men to represent the Company on the spot. But, whether such an interpretation would save the act or not, it is impossible to limit it in that way. It forbids the payment of any emolument of any nature to any person for the obtaining, placing or writing of any policy covering risks in New Mexico. The words go beyond any legitimate interest of the State, and although the decree is based only on payments to agents it does not declare that the payments thus made prevented the payment of appropriate commissions to the agents in the State nor does the statute limit its prohibition in that way.