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the Comstock Mining Company is alleged to have taken nothing by Groshon's conveyance to it, are these:

"SEC. 260. Foreign corporations shall, before they are authorized or permitted to do any business in this State, make and file a certificate signed by the president and secretary of such corporation, duly acknowledged, with the Secretary of State, and in the office of the recorder of deeds of the county in which such business is carried on, designating the principal place where the business of such corporation shall be carried on in this State, and an authorized agent or agents in this State residing at its principal place of business upon whom process may be served; and such corporations shall be subjected to all the liabilities, restrictions and duties which are or may be imposed upon corporations of like character organized under the general laws of this State, and shall have no other or greater powers. And no foreign or domestic corporation established or maintained in any way for pecuniary profit of its stockholders or members shall purchase or hold real estate in this State, except as provided for in this act; and no corporation doing business in the State, incorporated under the laws of any other State, shall be permitted to mortgage, pledge or otherwise encumber its real or personal property situated in this State, to the injury or exclusion of any citizen, citizens or corporations of this State who are creditors of such foreign corporation, and no mortgage by any foreign corporation, except railroad and telegraph companies, given to secure any debt created in any other State, shall take effect as against any citizen or corporation of this State until all its liabilities due to any person or corporation in this State at the time of recording such mortgage have been paid and extinguished.

"SEC. 261. Every company incorporated under the laws of any foreign State or kingdom, or of any State or Territory of the United States beyond the limits of this State, and now or hereafter doing business within this State, shall file in the office of the Secretary of State a copy of their charter of incorporation, or, in case such company is incorporated by certificate under any general incorporation law, a copy of such

Opinion of the Court.

certificate and of such general incorporation law, duly certified and authenticated by the proper authority of such foreign State, Kingdom, or Territory." Gen. Stat. Col. 1883, c. 19.

Precisely what was meant by the words, in section 260, "except as provided for in this act," is difficult to tell, since the act does not indicate any particular mode in which a foreign corporation may acquire real estate in Colorado. But, perhaps the reasonable interpretation of the statute is that a foreign corporation shall not purchase or hold real estate in Colorado, for purposes of its business, until it first acquires, in the mode prescribed by the local law, the right to do business in that State.

No question is made in this case—indeed, there can be no doubt as to the validity of these constitutional and statutory provisions, so far, at least, as they do not directly affect foreign or interstate commerce. In Cooper Manufacturing Co. v. Ferguson, 113 U. S. 727, 732, this court said that "the right of the people of a State to prescribe generally by its constitution and laws the terms upon which a foreign corporation shall be allowed to carry on its business in the State, has been settled by this court." It may be assumed, therefore, that the Comstock Mining Company, being a corporation of another State, had no right to do business in the State of Colorado until after it had one or more known places of business within its limits, and an authorized agent designated upon whom process could be served, nor until it had made and filed in the proper office the certificate prescribed by section 260 of the statute relating to foreign corporations. It may also be assumed, for the purposes of this case, that this company violated the law of that State when it purchased the premises here in controversy without having, in the mode prescribed by the statutes of Colorado, previously designated its principal place of business in that State, and an agent upon whom process might be served.

But it does not follow that the title to the property conveyed to the Comstock Mining Company remained in Groshon, notwithstanding his conveyance of it to that company, in due form, and for a valuable consideration.

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The constitution and laws of Colorado, it should be observed, do not prohibit foreign corporations altogether from purchasing or holding real estate within its limits. They do not declare absolutely or wholly void, as to all persons, and for every purpose, a conveyance of real estate to a foreign corporation which has not previously done what is required before it can rightfully carry on business in the State. Nor do they declare that the title to such property shall remain in the grantor, despite his conveyance. So far as we are aware, the only penalty imposed by the statutes of Colorado upon a foreign corporation carrying on business in the State before acquiring the right to do so, is found in section 262 of the same chapter, which provides: "A failure to comply with the provisions of sections 23 and 24 [sections 260 and 261] of this act shall render each and every officer, agent and stockholder of any such corporation, so failing therein, jointly and severally personally liable on any and all contracts of such company made within this State during the time that such corporation is so in default." The fair implication is that, in the judgment of the legislature of Colorado, this penalty was ample to effect the object of the statutes prescribing the terms upon which foreign corporations might do business in that State. It is not for the judiciary, at the instance or for the benefit of private parties, claiming under deeds executed by the person who had previously conveyed to the corporation, according to the forms prescribed for passing title to real estate, to inflict the additional and harsh penalty of forfeiting, for the benefit of such parties, the estate thus conveyed to the corporation and by it conveyed to others. If Groshon, the grantor of the Comstock Mining Company, had himself brought this action, the injustice of his claim would be conceded. But the present plaintiff, who asserts title under a quit-claim deed from Groshon made after the property had passed, by the sale under the deed of trust, from the mining company, cannot, in law, occupy any better position than the original grantor would have done if he had himself brought this action. If the legislature had intended to declare that no title should pass under a conveyance to a foreign corporation purchasing real estate before it acquires the

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right to engage in business in the State, and that such a conveyance should be an absolute nullity as between the grantor and grantee, leaving the grantor to deal with the property as if he had never sold it, that intention would have been clearly manifested. If the construction placed by the plaintiff upon the constitution and statutes of Colorado be sound, there would be some ground to say that a foreign corporation, taking a conveyance of real estate for purposes of its business in Colorado, before it had acquired the right to do business there, would have no standing in the courts of that State for the purpose of having the estate so acquired protected against trespasses upon it. And yet the contrary has been held by the Supreme Court of Colorado in Utley &c. v. Clark-Gardner Mining Company, 4 Colorado, 369. That was an action of trespass brought by a New York corporation. The declaration in one count charged the defendants with breaking and entering upon certain claims of the Gardner lode and breaking ore, etc. The other count was de bonis asportatis. The defendants filed a special plea in abatement, alleging that the plaintiff was a foreign corporation, and had never complied with the above statutory provisions as to filing a certificate designating its principal place of business in the State and an authorized agent upon whom process could be served. The court, waiving any expression of opinion as to what would be its decision, if the plea had been one in bar of the action, held that the prohibition in respect to foreign corporations, while they extended to the carrying on of business before complying with the laws of the State, did not abridge the right of a foreign corporation to sue in the courts of Colorado.

The views we have expressed are supported by several adjudications in this court in cases somewhat analogous to the present one, among which are those arising under sections 5136 and 5137 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. The first of those sections authorizes national banking associations to loan money on personal security. The other section provides: "A national banking association may purchase, hold and convey real estate for the following purposes, and for no others: First, such as shall be necessary for its immediate ac

Opinion of the Court.

commodation in the transaction of its business. Second, such as shall be mortgaged to it in good faith by way of security for debts previously contracted. Third, such as shall be conveyed to it in satisfaction of debts previously contracted in the course of its dealings. Fourth, such as it shall purchase at sales under judgments, decrees or mortgages held by the association, or shall purchase to secure debts to it. But no such association shall hold the possession of any real estate under mortgage, or the title and possession of any real estate purchased to secure any debts due to it, for a longer period than five years."

In National Bank v. Matthews, 98 U. S. 621, 627, the question was directly presented whether a national bank was entitled to the benefit of a deed of trust upon real estate, which, with the note described in it, was taken-not as security for, or in satisfaction of, debts previously contracted in the course of its dealings, but for a loan made by the bank at the time the deed of trust was assigned to it. The Supreme Court of Missouri held the deed of trust to be void, in the hands of the bank, because its loan was made upon real estate security in violation of the statute. But this court, after observing that the result insisted upon did not necessarily follow, said: "The statute does not declare such a security void. It is silent upon the subject. If Congress so meant, it would have been easy to say so; and it is hardly to be believed that this would not have been done, instead of leaving the question to be settled by the uncertain result of litigation and judicial decision. Where usurious interest is contracted for, a forfeiture is prescribed and explicitly defined." Again: "Where a corporation is incompetent by its charter to take a title to real estate, a conveyance to it is not void, but only voidable, and the sovereign alone can object. It is valid until assailed in a direct proceeding, instituted for that purpose."

In National Bank v. Whitney, 103 U. S. 99, 103, which involved the validity of a mortgage to a national bank, to secure future advances made to the mortgagor, the right of the bank to enforce the mortgage was sustained upon the principles announced in National Bank v. Matthews. The court said: