G.D. Searle & Company v. Cohn

Cohn (plaintiff) sued Searle (defendant) in New Jersey over an oral contraceptive-related stroke, and Searle removed to federal court and sought summary judgment on limitations grounds; Cohn invoked a New Jersey statute tolling the limitations period against foreign corporations lacking an in-state representative for service of process. The district court held the tolling statute violated equal protection since New Jersey's long-arm statute already permitted service on out-of-state corporations, but the New Jersey Supreme Court and the federal court of appeals both upheld the tolling statute as rationally related to the legitimate difficulty of serving out-of-state corporations.