Case ID: stew_1/html/0016-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "JUDGE GAYLE", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Bumpass et al. v. Richardson.
    Trustees appointed to sell town lots with power to appoint successors: On a note to them an action will not lie in the names of the successors.
    In Lauderdale County Court, Gabriel Bumpass, M. H. Buchannon, J. Terrell, H, Stockton and J. Davis, brought an action of debt against Matthias Richardson, on a writing obligatory, payable to said Bumpass, Buchannon, John M‘Cracken, German Lester and Tyree Rhodes. The declaration sets out that Bumpass, Buchannon, M‘Cracken and others, their associates, purchased a tract of land jointly, laid the same out into town lots, by the name of the town of Waterloo, and appointed Bumpass, Buchannon, M‘Cracken, Lester and Rhodes, trustees to manage the business of the company, with power to appoint successors to any of them who die or resign. That the writing obligatory was made payable to them as such trustees. That M‘Cracken, Lester and Rhodes resigned, and the plaintiffs, Terrell, Stockton and Davis, were duly appointed their successors, &c. .General demurrer and joinder.
    
      The County Court sustained the demurrer, and the plaintiffs brought the cause to this Court, and assigned as error, the judgement on the demurrer.
    Shortridge, for plaintiff.
    Martin, for defendant in error.
   JUDGE GAYLE

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The trustees had a right to sue in their individual names on contracts made with them as trustees, and to treat the addition as mere description. But this suit was not brought in the names of the trustees to vvhom the bond was payable, but in the names of only two of the obligees, and of Terrell, Stockton and Davis, the successors of the other three. An action cannot be sustained in the names of the successors who were not parties to the contract, and had no legal interest in it. This kind of succession would give to the trustees the perpetuity of a corporation. The action should have been brought in the names of the trustees to whom, the obligation was given, or of the survivors of them. *

The judgement must be affirmed.