Allgeyer v. Louisiana

Allgeyer v. Louisiana
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 6, 1897 Decided March 1, 1897
Full case name	E. Allgeyer & Co. v. Louisiana
Citations	165 U.S. 578 (more) 17 S. Ct. 427; 41 L. Ed. 832; 1897 U.S. LEXIS 1998
Prior history	Trial court held for defendant, Allgeyer. Louisiana Supreme Court reversed. 48 La. Ann. 104.
Holding
States may not prohibit citizens from contracting insurance out of state for acts performed outside the state. States may not prohibit citizens from contracting insurance out of state by written communication, even if the property to be insured is within the state.
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority	Peckham, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which a unanimous court struck down a Louisiana statute for violating an individual's liberty of contract. It was the first case in which the Supreme Court interpreted the word liberty in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to mean economic liberty.

In 1894, the Louisiana legislature passed a statute, "An act to prevent persons, corporations or firms from dealing with marine insurance companies that have not complied with law." The ostensible purpose of the statute was to prevent fraud by requiring state citizens and corporations to abstain from business with out-of-state marine insurance companies. Compliance with the statute required all out-of-state insurance companies to have an appointed agent within the state. The text of the statute read:

"That any person, firm or corporation who shall fill up, sign or issue in this State any certificate of insurance under an open marine policy, or who in any manner whatever does any act in this State to effect, for himself or for another, insurance on property, then in this State, in any marine insurance company which has not complied in all respects with the laws of this State, shall be subject to a fine of one thousand dollars, for each offence, which shall be sued for in any competent court by the attorney general for the use and benefit of the charity hospitals in New Orleans and Shreveport."

On October 27, 1894, E. Allgeyer & Co. dispatched mail from New Orleans to the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company in New York City to insure an international shipment of cotton, at the time in Louisiana, under an open policy that Allgeyer had with the insurance company.