Irvine v. Baker

225 F. 834, 1915 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1317
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedJuly 30, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 225 F. 834 (Irvine v. Baker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Irvine v. Baker, 225 F. 834, 1915 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1317 (S.D.N.Y. 1915).

Opinion

GRUBB, District Judge.

These actions were submitted for decision together. They are both actions by a receiver, appointed by an Ohio court to recover assessments made by that court, in proceedings there pending, upon the double liability of the testators under the Ohio Constitution and statutes as stockholders in an insolvent corporation.

The right of the receiver to recover is assailed upon these grounds: (1) The capacity of the plaintiff to maintain the action in a foreign jurisdiction. (2) Defects in the notice given the testators, or their personal representatives, of the pendency of the parent suit in Ohio. (3) The bar of the Ohio statute of limitations of 18 months. (4) The bar of the New York statute of limitations of six months, from the date of rejection of the claim by the personal representatives—this ground applies only to the case of Irvine v. Simpson et al. (5) The transfer and indorsement of the stock alleged to have occurred before the debts and the liabilities became enforceable against stockholders— this also applies only to the case of Irvine v. Simpson et al.

[Í] First. Conceding that a statutory receiver vested with title, as distinguished from a mere receiver in chancery, may maintain an ac-[837]*837lion for the recovery of property in a court of a jurisdiction other than that which appointed him, the defendants contend that the Ohio statute and the orders of the Ohio court, appointing the receiver and authorizing him to sue, are singly or together insufficient to vest title in the plaintiff or to authorize him to sue in New York.

The authority of a receiver, appointed by a Minnesota court under a statute of that state, to enforce a similar liability against nonresident stockholders in the states of their domicile, was upheld by the Supreme Court in the cases of Bernheimer v. Converse, 206 U. S. 516, 27 Sup. Ct. 755, 51 L. Ed. 1163, and Converse v. Hamilton, 224 U. S. 243, 32 Sup. Ct. 415, 56 L. Ed. 749, Ann. Cas. 1913D, 1292. The language of the Ohio statute is not identical with that of the Minnesota statute, but it does empower’ receivers appointed by its courts to sue in other states to collect a stockholders’ liability, assessed against nonresident stockholders by the Ohio court. The vesting of such authority in the receiver by the statute seems to be all that is required by the authorities. The right of this plaintiff, as receiver, to sue, has been sustained in the cases of Irvine v. Putnam (C. C.) 167 Fed. 174; Irvine v. Bankard (C. C.) 181 Fed. 206; Irvine v. Putnam (C. C.) 190 Fed. 321; Irvine v. Elliott (D. C.) 203 Fed. 82; and Blackburn v. Irvine, 205 Fed. 217, 123 C. C. A. 405. If there were doubt of the plaintiff’s right to sue, it should be resolved in his favor by this court, in view of these numerous determinations of the federal courts. His authority to maintain the suit, under the power conferred upon him by the Ohio statute, without reference to the orders of the Ohio court, is reasonably clear, in view of the liberal construction in favor of an efficient remedy to enforce the statutory or constitutional liability, adopted by the Supreme Court in the two cases cited.

12] Second. II the proceeding, which resulted in the assessment against the defendants, or their testators, was one of which they were required to be notified, and which could only proceed, as to them, while they were present in court, it is clear that the defendants in neither case were properly notified or personally present in court when the assessment was made.

It is settled that the personal notification and presence of the stockholder is not necessary, so far as the conclusiveness of the assessment is concerned, and apart from defenses personal to the stockholder, under statutes providing methods, for the enforcement of such liability, unless the peculiar character of the statute requires it. Ordinarily the corporation represents the stockholders for such purposes, and the presence of the corporation is the presence of the stockholder for the purpose of the making of the assessment. Spargo v. Converse, 191 Fed. 823, 112 C. C. A. 337; Hamilton v. Simon (C. C.) 178 Fed. 130; Goss v. Carter, 156 Fed. 746. 84 C. C. A. 402; Bernheimer v. Converse, 206 U. S. 516, 27 Sup. Ct. 755, 51 L. Ed. 1163; Converse v. Hamilton, 224 U. S. 243, 32 Sup. Ct. 415, 56 L. Ed. 749, Ann. Cas. 1913D, 1292; and Selig v. Hamilton, 234 U. S. 652, 34 Sup. Ct. 926, 58 L. Ed. 1518.

[3] The defendants contend that the Ohio statute, under which the parent suit in Ohio was instituted, was not of a character to admit of [838]*838a representation of stockholders by the corporation, and did not even require the corporation to- be made a party defendant to the suit to declare and enforce the stockholders’ liability. When the parent suit was commenced in 1899 in Ohio, section 3260, as amended March 22, 1894 (91 Ohio Laws, p. 88), of the Ohio Revised Statutes, regulated the procedure for the enforcement of stockholders’ liability under the Ohio laws. It seems to have contemplated an action between the creditors of the corporation, on the one side, and all of its stockholders as personal defendants, upon the other, with no1 requirement that the corporation be a defendant in the suit. The system then in force seems to have excluded the idea of representation by the- corporation of its stockholders, and to have contemplated the personal presence of such stockholders as were, sought to be held liable. Nonresident stockholders could not, then, be reached either for the purposes of assessment or the enforcement thereof. If this statutory system had remained in force until the decree in the parent cause, it would seem doubtful whether the assessment therein decreed would have bound stockholders who were not personally served or who did not voluntarily appear in the parent suit.

The system was changed on April 16, 1900, by the adoption in Ohio of an act to amend section 3260. Section 3260, as then amended, provided a system of assessing the stockholders’ liability of Ohio corporations similar to that adopted in Minnesota in 1899, and which -was held in the case of Bernheimer v. Converse, 206 U. S. 516, 27 Sup. Ct. 755, 51 L. Ed. 1163, and the cases which followed it, to sustain an assessment against stockholders not present or served, upon the idea of their representation by the corporation of which they were members. It is clear, if the parent case in Ohio came under the amended system at the time the decree was rendered in it, that the defendants would be concluded by the assessment, though they had no notice of the proceeding and did not voluntarily appear in thé parent case. They contend that, as the original proceeding was instituted under the old system and progressed to a final hearing without amendment to the pleadings bringing it expressly under the new system, it must be construed to have been conducted to a conclusion under the old system, and not to have been binding on the defendants, who were not served and did not appear.

It is to be observed that the third and concluding section of the act of April 16, 1900, provided that the act should apply to pending actions.

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Bluebook (online)
225 F. 834, 1915 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1317, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/irvine-v-baker-nysd-1915.