Warren v. Robison

70 P. 989, 25 Utah 205, 1902 Utah LEXIS 56
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 13, 1902
DocketNo. 1345
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 70 P. 989 (Warren v. Robison) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Warren v. Robison, 70 P. 989, 25 Utah 205, 1902 Utah LEXIS 56 (Utah 1902).

Opinion

STEWART, District Judge.

This action was instituted on behalf of plaintiffs, as stockholders of defendant, the Citizens’ Bank of Ogden, and all stockholders and creditors and others similarly situated who might thereafter join, against the defendants., for an accounting and for damages alleged to have been occasioned by reason of negligence in the management of the bank by its directors and officers. The action was tried by the lower court without a jury, and a judgment of nonsuit granted, from which judgment plaintiffs appealed, and the judgment of nonsuit as to the defendants Maguire, Beeman, Perkins, Armstrong, and the bank was affirmed; but said judgment was reversed as to defendants Brough, Spencer, Murphy, Kuhn, Wells, Schramm, and Corey. Warren v. Robison, 19 Utah 289, 57 Pac. 287, 75 Am. St. Rep. 734. Pending trial from which this appeal is taken, the defendant Schramm died, and his executors were substituted as parties defendants. The plaintiffs R. J. Hill and John Brennan also died before the date of the second trial. Upon the second trial a judgment was rendered by the district court against all the defendants then before it, holding them, liable to the plaintiffs in certain specified amounts. Plaintiffs appeal to this court from the judgment, the defendant Brough appeals, and the defendants Spencer, Murphy, and Kuhn also appeal. The appeal in each instance is taken solely upon th9 judgment roll.

The plaintiffs, appellants, assign in their petition of error eight different errors, but they may all be resolved into one, viz., that the court erred in awarding judgment on the findings in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendants for any less sum than $20,050, with interest thereon from the twenty-sixth day of December, 1893. The court found in its findings of fact that plaintiffs are the owners of 200 1-2 shares of the capital stock of said defendant, the [209]*209Citizens’ Bank, of tbe par value of $100 each, and said appellants contend that- they are entitled to recover the full amount of stock subscribed for and paid for by them, to-wit, the sum of $20,050, compensating them for all loss which they sustained by reason of their investment in said bank. The court below, in determining the amount of damages plaintiffs should receive, as stockholders of said bank, by reason of the negligence and wrongful acts of defendants, held that said stockholders should be compensated for the loss they actually sustained by reason of such neglectful or wrongful acts, and not for any loss sustained without any fault or neglect of defendants. Binding No. 29 of the trial court is as follows: “The court further finds that the stock of plaintiffs in said bank is worthless and of no- value,” but does not find that it resulted from the negligence of the defendants. The record in this case discloses that the Citizens’ Bank of Ogden was incorporated with a paid-up' capital stock of $147,105, transa acting a general banking business; that plaintiffs and their intestates were stockholders in s.aid bank, and that many other parties than plaintiffs were stockholders in said bank; that the business of the bank did not prosper, and it had many losses and financial reverses, and that, on December 26, 1893, it made a general assignment for the benefit of its creditors. After paying its creditors, nothing was left of its assets for the stockholders, and the stock became valueless (findings 18, 34, and 29). It farther appears from the findings that many of the errors resulting in loss to the bank were errors of 1 judgment, and not caused by reason of any want of care or lack of diligence of any officer of the bank; so that we consider that the holding of the court below, that defendants should respond only in damages occasioned by the wrongful and neglectful acts of such defendants, sound in law, and supported by equity and good conscience. To hold otherwise would be to require defendants to answer in damages for losses sustained by the bank which occurred without fault of defendants. In the law of damages, the universal and car-[210]*210Sinai principle is that the person injured shall receive compensation commensurate with his loss or injury, and no more; and it is a right of the person who is bound to pay this compensation not to be compelled to pay more than that actually occasioned by such person’s wrongful acts or negligence; so we consider that damages in this case should be limited to such as were occasioned by the wrongful acts of the defendants. And, since it does not appear from the findings that more damage than that allowed by the lower court was caused by the negligence or wrongful acts of the defendants, the defendants ought not to be compelled to- pay for more, and the damages awarded should be prorated among the stockholders proportionate to the amount of stock which each holds, as determined by the lower court.

Said appellants further contend that the trial court should have held, upon the findings of fact, the defendants Spencer, Murphy, and Kuhn liable upon the so-called Cache Valley Land & Canal Company loan. Said finding is as follows:

“No. 23. The court further finds that the transaction mentioned in the twenty-first and twenty-second paragraphs of said amended complaint, and therein referred to as the Cache Valley Canal Company transaction, was a loan made to said canal company by the defendant Theodore Robison (who was then and there acting vice-president and general manager of said bank) surreptitiously and without the knowledge or consent or permission of either the president or any director of said bank, and that said Robison purposely concealed said transaction for some time thereafter from the attention of the president and directors of said bank, without fault or neglect of duty on their part; that at the time said Robison made said transaction, and for a long time thereafter, the defendant Kuhn was absent from the State of Utah, and was at Green River, in the State of Wyoming, there engaged as a party to and as a witness in an important action then and there pending in the district court of said State of [211]*211Wyoming and that said Spencer was also at and during said time necessarily absent from the said State of Utah, and in the State of Oregon, there attending to important business interests in which he was interested; and that defendant Murphy was at and during said period of time con-finded to his residence by reason of severe personal illness, and was thereby unable to go to said bank or to attend to his duties therein; that when, by due diligence, the president and the directors of said bank discovered and learned of and concerning the said canal company transaction, they made all reasonable efforts to collect for said bank the sum of money involved in said transaction, but were unable to do so; and the court further finds that said bank did not in this transaction sustain any loss or injury which was occasioned by any neglect of duty of either of the defendant directors before the court upon this trial.”

It clearly appears from the above finding that said defendants Spencer, Murphy, and Kuhn were not guilty of any neglect of duty in the matter of said loan, but that, 2 after learning of said transaction, the president and directors made all reasonable efforts to collect the amount involved in said transaction; and it does not appear that said loss could have been averted by. any care or vigilance which either of them could have exercised. They, therefore, are not liable on said loan.

The defendant C. M.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
70 P. 989, 25 Utah 205, 1902 Utah LEXIS 56, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/warren-v-robison-utah-1902.