New Albany Waterworks v. Louisville Banking Co.

122 F. 776, 58 C.C.A. 576, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 3924
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJanuary 6, 1903
DocketNo. 903
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 122 F. 776 (New Albany Waterworks v. Louisville Banking Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
New Albany Waterworks v. Louisville Banking Co., 122 F. 776, 58 C.C.A. 576, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 3924 (7th Cir. 1903).

Opinion

SEAMAN, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The appellants’ objection to jurisdiction of the bill is untenable. It rests upon the proposition'that the answer charges, without denial, that certain of the minority stockholders of the defendant New Albany Waterworks, who are citizens of Indiana, “combined with the appellee, a citizen of Kentucky, and caused it to bring the suit” in the federal court. But in the same connection it is frankly conceded that no collusion appears, in the sense of equity rule 94; that the controlling majority in the corporation is opposed to the objects sought by the bill, and demand upon the directors for action to that end would be useless. The right of a single stockholder to sue in equity to enjoin violation of the corporate franchise—and in the federal court when he is a citizen of another state—upheld in the leading case of Dodge v. Woolsey, 18 How. 331, 15 L. Ed. 401, is now well established. 5 Rose’s Notes, U. S. Reports, 587. In recognition of this doctrine, and of its abuse'in practice on the part of resident corporations to institute collusive suits in the name of nonresident stockholders for the purpose of obtaining federal jurisdiction, and “to give effect to the principles applied” in Hawes v. Oakland, 104 U. S. 450, 26 L. Ed. 827, to a case thus arising, rule 94 in equity was adopted. Quincy v. Steel, 120 U. S. 241, 245, 7 Sup. Ct. 520, 30 L. Ed. 624. Jurisdiction, therefore, is undeniable, of a stockholder’s bona fide bill to restrain an alleged breach of trust by the directors, or other violation of corporate duty. Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 157 U. S. 429, 553, 15 Sup. Ct. 673, 39 L. Ed. 759. Relief thereunder necessarily operates for the benefit of all stockholders who have like interests. With a right of action thus existing individually, however, the fact that other minority stockhold[779]*779ers are equally interested in the result does not affect jurisdiction of the bill, nor require their presence as parties. Neither the fact of citizenship of the other stockholders, majority or minority, nor of their attitude to the controversy, by contribution or. otherwise, is material to relief under the bill, if the management of" the corporation is adverse to the objects of the bill, and is not in collusion with the complainant in any sense.Vi The case of Cashman v. Amador & Sacramento Canal Co., 118 U. S. 58, 6 Sup. Ct. 926, 30 L. Ed. 72, cited in support of this objection, is plainly distinguishable. As there held, the “dispute or controversy” was “really and substantially” one between'a county and citizens of the same state; and “the suit was originally brought by the county of Sacramento for its own benefit,” and was carried on at its sole charge, while “the name of Cashman was used with his consent,” as that of a mere nonresident landowner, “because the county could not sue in its own name” in the federal court. It’ was the suit of the county with a party plaintiff “collusively made,” and “for the purpose of creating a case cognizable” by that court, and thus within the act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 470, c. 137 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 511, § 5]. The utmost that may be inferred from the allegations in the present case of combination with the Indiana stockholders is that they induced the complainant to file the bill, and are contributors to the expense. Conceding this, the suit is not collusive, in the sense of either statute or rule, and is within the jurisdiction of the trial court.

Upon the merits, the main question, if not the only one involved, is whether the lease in controversy is ultra vires. Both parties to the lease are corporations organized to supply the city of New Albany with water, under the General Statutes of Indiana, which provide for incorporating manufacturing and mining companies, including companies “to supply any city or village with water.” Burns’ Rev. St. Ind. 1901, c. 38. When the lease was executed, the New Albany Waterworks, lessor, owned and operated, under an ordinance of the city of New Albany, the only system of waterworks which was then completed for such supply; and the Indiana Water Company, lessee, recently incorporated, and authorized by ordinance of the city to “construct o'r establish, acquire and maintain waterworks” therein, had entered upon the construction of a rival system. The term of the lease covered the unexpired term of the lessor’s corporate franchise (and extended several years beyond), and the grant was specified as the “entire waterworks system and plant and appurtenances and all franchises and contracts under and in pursuance of which the business of the lessor” was conducted. In other words, the conveyance, if valid, deprives the lessor company of all its property and means, acquired for the purposes for which it was incorporated, and essential to the fulfillment of those purposes; transferring the entire use, and delegating performance of the duties to the lessee company. While the charter rights were retained, they were useless for the purposes of the grant when the plant and privileges were gone. If the transaction thus stated is beyond the scope of. its corporate powers, the injunction was rightly granted, irrespective of the contentions [780]*780on one side and the other of benefit or injury to the minority stockholders, or of the duty which the directors owed to them.

The corporation was organized under the General Statutes of the state for a public purpose—to supply water to a municipality and its inhabitants—and was thus a quasi public corporation; uniformly so recognized by the authorities. So created, the corporation can exercise no power or authority which is not expressly conferred by the statute, or necessarily implied for the purpose of carrying out the powers expressly granted. This general doctrine is indisputable, and the following citations are sufficient for its application to the case at bar: Thomas v. Railroad Company, 101 U. S. 71, 82, 25 L. Ed. 950; Branch v. Jesup, 106 U. S. 468, 478, 1 Sup. Ct. 495, 27 L. Ed. 279; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute R. Co., 118 U. S. 290, 309, 6 Sup. Ct. 1094, 30 L. Ed. 83; Central Transportation Co. v. Pullman’s Palace Car Co., 139 U. S. 24, 48; 11 Sup. Ct. 478, 35 L. Ed. 55; East St. Louis Connecting Ry. Co. v. Jarvis, 34 C. C. A. 639, 92 Fed. 735, 744; Eel River R. Co. v. State ex rel., etc., 155 Ind. 433, 457, 57 N. E. 388, and cases cited. Without legislative assent, therefore, the corporation cannot transfer to another, “while it continues to exist as a corporation,” its entire property and privileges, by sale or lease, and thus “abnegate the performance of the duties to the public, imposed upon it by its charter as the consideration for the grant of its franchise”; and no-assent can be presumed “unless unequivocally expressed or necessarily to be implied in the terms of the grant.” Central Transportation Co. v. Pullman’s Palace Car Co., supra.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
122 F. 776, 58 C.C.A. 576, 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 3924, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/new-albany-waterworks-v-louisville-banking-co-ca7-1903.