Opinion ID: 987954
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Westburgs' Claims

Text: ¶76 When an act that is alleged to have caused injury to a corporation is alleged also to have caused an injury to another person, we must determine whether the alleged injury to the other person is direct or merely derivative of the injury to the corporation. Rose, 56 Wis. 2d at 229. Where the injury to the corporation is the primary injury, and any injury to stockholders secondary, it is the derivative action alone that can be brought and maintained. Id. Stated otherwise, to raise a direct claim of injury, the right sought to be enforced must be that of the person seeking to enforce it and not dependent on a right of a corporation. Id. ¶77 There are occasions where the separate right of a corporation and the separate right of another person are both wrongfully affected by one act. See Harpole Architects, P.C. v. Barlow, 668 F. Supp. 2d 68, 77-78 (D.C. 2009) (explaining that where conversion by former bookkeeper was an injury to the corporation, bookkeeper's misrepresentation, which was made to hide the conversion of corporate funds, caused a separate injury to Harpole). Claims raised as affirmative defenses are subject to the same analysis of whether the defense belongs primarily to the corporation or is based on a separate and distinct right of the person who is asserting it. ¶78 In the case at hand, I agree with the majority opinion that the only right to which injury is claimed that does not 4 No. 2010AP3158.pdr depend on an underlying injury to a corporation is the temporary freezing of the Westburgs' personal money-market account by Park Bank.7