The Republic of Indonesia v. J. R. Simplot Company

The Republic of Indonesia appeals from a judgment in a suit based on diversity of citizenship on two contracts, one for the sale to appellant of three million pounds of dehydrated potatoes and the other for a million and a half pounds.

The court held appellant cannot recover from appellee the cost of unloading the potatoes on to the railway dock at Portland from the railway cars. Appellant contends the District Court erred in construing the contracts of sale as placing this cost on the appellant.

Appellee contends that the District Court lacked such jurisdiction because appellant is suing as assignee of a contract made between a foreign corporation, Agricultural Machinery Corporation, a New York corporation admittedly not qualified to do business in Idaho. The Idaho Supreme Court, in a suit to foreclose a mortgage, holds that the as-signee of such an unqualified foreign corporation cannot sue in the courts of that state. Hoff stater v. Jewell, 33 Idaho 439 , 196 P. 194 . Were this the situation the appellant not being able to bring suit in the state courts, the federal district court would have no jurisdiction to entertain it in a diversity of citizenship case. Woods v.…