Case ID: misc_47/html/0674-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Dugro, J. \n      MaoLean, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

T. Lloyd Hollister, Respondent, v. The DeForest Wireless Telegraph Co., Appellant.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
    June, 1905.)
    Stock Corporation Law, § 53 — Inspection of stock book — Action for penalty — What must be shown.
    Unless the plaintiff, in an action to recover the penalty provided (Stock Corporation Law, § 53) for failure of an alleged foreign stock corporation to permit an inspection of its stock book, etc., proves by competent evidence that defendant is a stock corporation having an office for the transaction of business, or a transfer agent in this State; that it is not a moneyed or railroad corporation and that plaintiff is a stockholder therein, he cannot recover.
    Appeal by the defendant from a judgment rendered in ifavor of the plaintiff in the Municipal Court of the city of ¡New York, second district, borough of Manhattan.
    T. Lloyd Hollister, for respondent in person..
    Francis X. Butler, for appellant.
   Dugro, J.

Plaintiff failed to show a cause of action, among other things, in that he failed to prove by competent evidence that the defendant was a stock corporation, and had an office for the transaction of business or a transfer agent in this State; that it was not a moneyed or railroad corporation, and that he was a stockholder.

The judgment must, therefore, be reversed and a new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide the event.

MaoLean, J.

(concurring). The plaintiff upon oral pleadings sought to recover a penalty under section 53 of the Stock Corporation Law, relying upon a certificate issued by the defendant to the Mutual Securities Company and assigned by the latter to himself. Among other requirements of that section he failed to show himself entitled as a stockholder to inspection of the books of the company, for section 29 of the same law recites that “No transfer of stock shall be valid as against the corporation, its stockholders and creditors for any purpose, except to render the transferee liable for the debts of the corporation according to the provisions of this chapter, until it shall have been entered in such hook as required by this section, by an entry showing from and to whom transferred.” This was not done.

The judgment should, therefore, he reversed, with costs.

Scott and MacLean, JJ., concur.

Judgment reversed, with costs.