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Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR > Volume 45 > Issue 1 (1946)

 

Abstract

The plaintiff, an Illinois corporation, offered correspondence courses in refrigeration and air conditioning. One of its agents solicited the defendant in Lincoln, Nebraska. The defendant signed a contract and promissory note for the tuition and made an advance payment, whereupon the agent forwarded the contract, note, payment and other papers to the home office of the plaintiff corporation in Chicago, Illinois. The plaintiff accepted the contract in Illinois. After six months, the defendant refused to proceed with the lessons or make further payments in accordance with the contract. The plaintiff sued for the balance due on the note. The Nebraska statute made it unlawful for a representative of any school, domestic or foreign, while soliciting in the state, to receive a note or contract for tuition unless the note had the words "Negotiable note given for tuition" written prominently thereon, or the contract was inscribed "Negotiable contract note given for tuition and scholarship." The statute, among other penalties, provided that a note or contract which failed to comply with its terms was void. The contract and note in question did not comply with this Nebraska statute. Held, although the contract may be considered an Illinois contract and perfectly valid by the laws of that state, the plaintiff may not enforce it in Nebraska. A foreign corporation under such circumstances possesses no greater rights than a domestic corporation, and when it solicits business in Nebraska contrary to its law, a contract growing out of such transaction, though finally consummated and valid in another state, if invalid in Nebraska, will not be enforced there as a matter of comity. Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Institute, Inc. v. Hillyard, (Neb. 1945) 18 N.W. (2d) 548.

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