Case ID: ohio-st_23/html/0166-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ohio, ex rel. The Attorney-General, v. The Southwestern Transportation and Wharf-boat Company.
    In quo warranto.
    
    The opinion of the court indicates the facts.
    
      Huston & Shunk, with whom was F. B. Pond, attorney-general, for the state:
    1. Corporations have'only such powers as are specifically granted or necessarily implied by the act of incorporation.. Grants of corporate power are in derogation of common right, and are to be strictly construed. Straus & Bro. v. Eagle Ins. Co., 5 Ohio St. 59; Currier v. M. & C. R. R. Co., 11 Ohio St. 228; White’s Bank of Buffalo v. Toledo Ins. Co., 12 Ohio St. 605; The State v. Chase, 5 Ohio St. 529; Miami Coal Co. v. Wigton, 19 Ohio St. 560; Bartholomew v. Bentley, 1 Ohio St. 37; The State v. Wash. Social Library Co., 11 Ohio, 96; Bank of Chillicothe v. Swayne, 8 Ohio, 286, 287.
    2. The act of April 8, 1856, supplementary to the corporation act of May 1, 1852 (see S. & S. 169, and 66 Ohio L. 125), provides only for business purely mechanical, and confers neither the power to buy, own, and use a wharf-boat for commercial purposes, nor the power to carry on the business of receiving, storing, and delivering merchandise.
    No brief filed for respondent.
   By the Court.

The act (66 Ohio L. 125, 126) authorizing “ any number of persous, not less than three,”, to “ as sociate themselves together .... for the purpose of . . . . building, repairing steamboats and other water-crafts, .... and carrying on business usually connected with the main objects of the corporation aloresaid,”' does not confer upon the corporation so organized any of the following liberties, privileges, and franchises, to wit:

1. That of having and exercising the right to purchase, own, and use a wharf-boat, for the purpose of receiving, storing, and forwarding or delivering general merchandise or freight.

2. That of carrying on the business of receiving on said wharf-boat general merchandise or freight from any steamboat or steamboats, or from any shipper or shippers; of storing such merchandise or freight on said wharf-boat, and of forwarding or delivering the same to any boat or boats as aforesaid, or to any consignee charging a compensation therefor,

J udgment of ouster as to said liberties, etc.