U.S. Supreme Court FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO. v. STATE OF MINNESOTA, 280 U.S. 204 (1930)

[Page 280 U.S. 204, 218]

the statute of limitations has run at home. But such decisions when defensible stand on the ground that the limitation is only procedural and does not extinguish the duty. If the statute extinguishes the debt by lapse of time no foreign jurisdiction that intelligently understood its function would attempt to make the debtor pay.

I will not repeat what I said the other day in Safe Deposit & Trust Co. of Baltimore v. Virginia (November 25, 1929), concerning the attempt to draw conclusions from the supposed situs of a debt. The right to tax exists in this case because the party needs the help of Minnesota to acquire a right, and that State can demand a quid pro quo in return. Southern Pacific Co. v. Kentucky, 222 U.S. 63, 68, 32 S. Ct. 13; Union Refrigerator Transit Co. v. Kentucky, 199 U.S. 194, 206, 26 S. Ct. 36, 4 Ann. Cas. 493.

I do not dwell on the practical necessity of resorting to the State in order to secure payment of state or municipal bonds. Even if the creditor had a complete and adequate remedy elsewhere, I still should think that a correct decision of the case must rest on whether I am right or not about the theoretical cal dependence of the continued existence of the bonds upon Minnesota law.

Blackstone v. Miller, , 23 S. Ct. 277, supports my conclusions and I do not think that it should be overruled. A good deal has to be read into the Fourteenth Amendment to give it any bearing upon this case. The Amendment does not condemn everything that we may think undesirable on economic or social grounds.

Mr. Justice BRANDEIS agrees with this opinion.