Court Opinion

ID: 5436832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-08 17:55:37.859321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:31:52.147232
License: Public Domain

By the Court, Rhodes, J.:
I. The point that the proceeding is without authority of law is based upon a typographical error in the statutes of 1851, p. 443, Sec. 31. It appears from that section, as printed, that the whole Act of 1850, concerning corporations, was repealed; but the Act, as enrolled, shows that only Chapter III of the Act of 1850 was repealed. Chapter I of that Act, which includes the section under which the proceeding was instituted, was left in full force.
II. The proceeding is clearly of a judicial character. The controversy was heard and determined by the Judge in his official capacity, and his decision was a final determination of the rights of the parties to the proceeding. The fact that the proceeding was instituted before the Judge, and not the District Court, docs not prove that the proceeding was not a judicial, proceeding, nor that the decision does not amount to a judgment, for the Legislature is not prohibited by the Constitution from conferring upon the Judges authority to hear and determine actions and proceedings at Chambers. Such authority is granted in respect to writs of mandamus, certiorari, and quo warranto. We are of the opinion that this is a special proceeding; that the decision is a judgment, and that an appeal therefrom is given by section three hundred and forty-seven of the Practice Act; and such, we judge from the stipulation, was the view of the counsel who appeared before the District Judge.
III. The parties recited in their stipulation all the facts in the case, and agreed that the stipulation should be a part of the judgment roll, and that no other statement on appeal should be required. The facts therein recited took the place and served all the purposes of a finding of facts by the Court. Ho statement on appeal was necessary. All the questions presented arise upon what the parties have agreed shall constitute the judgment roll, and no specification of the errors or ground relied upon is required to be made in the record.
*24IV. The power of electing the Directors of a railroad corporation is lodged by the statute in the hands of the stockholders. The exercise of this power having been regulated by the statute, the corporation cannot, by its by-laws, resolutions, or contracts, either give or take it away. Were the statute silent in this respect, the election of the Directors, like the election or appointment of subordinate officers, would be subject to the regulation and control of the corporation, but the statute having expressly declared who shall be entitled to vote for Directors, its provisions are imperative upon the corporation, constituting a part of the law of its being; and the corporation has no authority to extend or limit the right, as regulated by the statute. The first section of the Act of 1861 (Stats. 1861, p. 607) provides that the first Board of Directors shall be elected by the subscribers to the stock, and subsequent sections provide that after the. first election the Directors shall be elected by the stockholders— each stockholder being entitled to one vote for each share of stock which he owned for ten days next preceding such election. The clause, therefore, of the resolution of the Board of Directors giving Louis McLane authority to vote the stock transferred to him by the corporation, as well as the clause to the same effect in the agreement entered into by him with the corporation, was void.
It becomes necessary to ascertain the ownership of the stock voted upon by McLane. For this purpose the resolution of the Board of Directors, the receipt given for the stock and the agreement executed by McLane are to be construed together as constituting one transaction. The substance of the transaction is that Wells, Fargo & Co. advanced to the Plaeerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad Company the sum of two hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars, and the railroad company, as security for the money so advanced, issued to Louis McLane, as the trustee for Wells, Fargo & Co., ten thousand shares of the capital stock of the railroad company, to be retransferred to the company upon payment of the indebtedness for the money so advanced, and *25in proportional amounts as said payments should be made. The time of payment is not specified. The respondents contend that the transaction is neither a mortgage nor a pledge of the stock, hut only amounts to a trust; and the appellants claim that the transaction constitutes a pledge. We are of the opinion that it is a pledge.
A pledge is a bailment of personal property as a security for some debt or engagement. (Story on Bailm., Sec. 268.) The general property in the thing pledged remains in the pledgor, and only a special property vests in the pledgee. A delivery to the pledgee of the thing pledged is essential to the contract, and until that act is performed the special property that the bailee is entitled to hold does not vest in him. In respect to most kinds of property, a delivery of the property to the pledgee, without any written transfer of the title, is sufficient to pass the requisite special property. Incorporeal property, being incapable of manual delivery, cannot be pledged without a written transfer of the title. Debts, negotiable instruments, stocks in incorporated companies, and dioses in action generally are pledged in that mode. Such transfer of the title performs the same office that the delivery of possession does in case of a pledge of corporeal property. The transfer of the title, like the delivery of possession, constitutes the evidence of the pledgee’s right of property in the thing pledged. The transfer in writing of shares of stock not only does not prove that the transaction is not a pledge, but the stock, unless it is expressly made assignable by the delivery of the certificates, cannot he pledged in any other manner. In Wilson v. Little, 2 N. Y. 443, the stock was transferred to the defendants, hut the Court held that the contract amounted to a pledge of the stock. (See, also, Jewitt v. Warren, 12 Mass. 300; Bowman v. Wood, 15 Mass. 534; Dewey v. Bowman, 8 Cal. 145; Story on Bailm., Sec. 290, and following; Parsons on Cont. 595.) In Dewey v. Bowman it is said that the pledgee has not the legal title to the property, and lan*26guage of the same import is found in many cases. It was not intended to say in that case that the pledgee never receives the apparent legal title, but only that, as between him and the pledgor, the title, or more accurately, the general property, remained in the pledgor, for the subject matter of the contract was a lease which was assigned to secure the payment of a certain promissory note, and it was held that the contract was a pledge and not a mortgage. In Wilson v. Little, in speaking of the pledge of certain shares of stock, the Court say: “The general property which the pledgor is said to retain is nothing more than a legal right to the restoration of the thing pledged, on payment of the debt.” A corporation, in pledging shares of its stock, which had not been issued at the time of making the contract, must, of necessity, issue them to the pledgee, or to some one for him.
The circumstance that the stock was issued to Louis McLane, as Trustee for Wells, Fargo & Co., instead of being issued in the name of the latter, does not alter the real nature of the transaction. McLane is described as the trustee of Wells, Fargo & Co., but his position and duties in respect to the stock, so far as either of the parties to the contract are concerned, is that of agent of the creditors. He is none the less a mere agent in the transaction because he is described as trustee. The transfer of the stock to him was in law a transfer to his principal, Wells, Fargo & Co. Had he been named as the agent of the creditors, there would be no room for doubt on this point. His true position in the transaction is to be determined, not by the title given to him, but by the acts and duties he is to perform; and these show that he bears the relation of agent to the creditors of the corporation.
The transaction lacks one essential element of a mortgage. A mortgage passes the title to the mortgagee, the mortgagor reserving the right to defeat the transfer and revest the title in himself by the performance of an express condition subsequent. Here no time was mentioned for the repayment of the money advanced, and the contract looked to the retrans*27fer of the stock to the corporation. It is not claimed, on the part of respondents, that McLane had any right to sell the stock, but it is admitted that he is to hold it until the money, or some part of it, is paid, and thereupon to retransfer the stock, or a proportional part of it, to the company. Ho other right in the stock is asserted for Wells, Fargo & Co. than that claimed for McLane. This evidently is not such a title as is held by a mortgagee of personal property. We are satisfied that the contract is a bailment of the stock, and we are unable to give it any place among the different kinds of bailment except that of a pledge.
It results from this view of the contract that, as between the parties, the general property in the stock is in the pledgor—that the railroad company is its owner.
V. The question here is not whether the pledgee or a trustee to whom stock has been pledged or transferred by a stockholder, and who appears upon the books of the corporation to be the owner, is entitled to vote; but it is whether the agent or trustee of the pledgee, who is described in the Certificate Book of the corporation as a trustee, and who holds as such trustee or agent certain shares of stock which were pledged by the corporation to its creditor, is entitled to vote such stock. The designation of McLane as trustee was sufficient to show that he did not hold the stock in his own right, and as the corporation was one of the parties to the contract, its officers are chargeable with notice of the manner in which he held the stock. The case falls within the principle of Ex parte Holmes, 5 Cow. 426, in which it was held that there could be no vote upon stock owned by the company, though held by trustees; that it was not stock to be voted upon by any one within the meaning of the charter or the general Act relating to that subject. Subsequent cases, like Ex parte Barker, 6 Wend. 510, though qualifying and restricting the broad language of Ex parte Holmes so as not to exclude the vote of a trustee upon the stock held in. trust for a stockholder, have not questioned the doctrine that the stock belonging to the corporation, though held in the *28name of trustees, was not entitled to be voted upon. This doctrine must command the assent of every one, unless it can be shown that a corporation can become a stockholder in the sense of the statute of its own stock, receiving from itself dividends, and responding to itself for calls for assessments, and being responsible for the debts of the corporation, first as a corporation, and second, as a stockholder.
VI. It is objected that an investigation cannot be here collaterally made of the terms and conditions upon which the trustee holds the stock. To what extent evidence, if objected to, would be admissible to prove such terms and conditions, it is unnecessary to inquire, for the case was presented to the Court below upon an agreed statement of facts, without reserving the question of the competency, relevancy, or admissibility of any fact in the statement, and it is now too late to raise the question. The judgment of the Court was invoked upon the facts recited in the statement.
VII. There is another view of the matter which appears to us to be equally decisive of the case. The whole Act proceeds on the theory that the certificates of stock aro to be issued only upon the payment in full for the stock. Section fourteen is as follows: “ Certificates of stock shall be issued, signed by the President and Secretary, in such manner as may be prescribed by the by-laws of the company, for all slock paid up, from time to time, in compliance with the requirements of such Directors, or that may be fully paid in advance of such requirements by the voluntary act of any stockholder of such company.” This provision clearly negatives by implication, the right to issue the certificates of stock in advance of payment. There are many provisions of the Act that lend support to this construction. The “ Book of Stockholders ” is required to contain the amount of cash actually paid to the company by the stockholders respectively for their stock. In the next section (twelve) it is provided that the stock shall be transferable in the manner provided by the preceding section, and upon the books of the company, upon proper assignment and delivery to the assignee *29of the receipts for the installments paid on such stock, or the certificates of stock, when fully paid. The provison of the Act is general that all stockholders shall be liable to calls for assessments until the stock is paid up, and that payment may be enforced by suit and sale of the stock. The Act also authorizes the holders of the railroad bonds, with the consent of the corporation, to convert the principal into stock— that is, dollar for dollar. The manifest purpose was to place all stockholders upon an equal footing. The Act is not liable to the charge of inequality, if not absurdity, of restricting the corporation so that it could not issue the certificates of stock to the original subscribers to the stock, without payment in full, and permitting it to issue the remainder of the capital stock without payment.
Counsel have discussed the question whether the corporation can issue stock except in pursuance of a subscription; but that is not the question now before us, nor does it afford a test for its solution. It may be conceded that the corporation may issue its stock to its creditor in satisfaction of its debt, and the creditor may not be technically a subscriber to the stock, though he is substantially. In such case the creditor does that which is a prerequisite in every issue of stock —he purchases and pays for the stock. His demand stands in the place of so much money.
The provision of section thirteen, that the Directors may “ call in and demand from the stockholders the sums by them subscribed, in equal installments of not more than ten per cent per month, unless otherwise stipulated in the articles of subscription, at such time as they may deem proper,” instead of lending support to the respondents’ position, that the stock may be issued without payment therefor, implies that payment must be made, and that the calls may be greater than ten per cent per month when the subscribers have so stipulated. The authority given in section four to the Directors to open books of subscription upon such terms as they may direct, does not permit them to receive subscriptions without any terms—that is, without payment or promise of payment *30for the stock. And neither this provision, nor that of section nine, which is also relied on by the respondents, and which gives the Directors power “to make and-execute contracts of whatsoever nature or kind, fully and completely to carry out the objects and purposes of such corporation,” abrogates the special provisions relative to the issuing of the stock. In Clark v. Farrington, 11 Wis. 325; Cin. I. & C. R. R. v. Clarkson, 7 Ind. 595; Carr v. Le Ferre, 27 Penn. St. 413, and other cases cited by the respondents, the question was considered whether the company could receive anything but money on the subscription for stock; but if the position is tenable that the stock might have been issued without payment in anything, we are confident that it would have been taken in some of those cases, and the discussion of that question would have been useless.
While the position that the corporation may issue its stock in payment of its indebtedness is not questioned, it does not follow that the stock may be issued to secure such indebtedness. Had the stock been issued in the usual manner, and afterwards become the property of the corporation, and been held in such a manner that it did not merge, the corporation might deal with it the same as any stockholder, unless prohibited by the statute; but the claim of authority to pledge the unissued stock necessarily assumes the very point in controversy—the authority to issue the stock without purchase or payment.
The capital stock of a corporation, previous to its being issued, cannot, in any proper sense, be called the property of the corporation. When the certificates of stock are issued to a stockholder, they are, in his hands, the muniments and evidence of his title to a given share in the property, income, and franchises of the corporation. (Mechanics’ Bank v. N. Y. and N. H. R. R. Co., 13 N. Y. 627.) The corporation possesses only the right, the power to issue the stock, and a condition precedent, to the exercise of the power is the purchase and payment for the stock. This restriction, if it may properly be so called, is not more unreasonable than those *31relating to the amount of money the corporation may borrow and the rate of interest it may pay, and they all tend in some degree to protect the stockholders and creditors. If the power exists in the corporation to issue stock to secure a loan or indebtedness, it is practically unlimited, and the Directors may issue and pledge all the capital stock not held by stockholders as security for a trifling loan, and by the aid of the stocks thus issued, they may increase the capital stock, and pledge the new stock to secure another loan, and thus perpetuate themselves in power beyond the reach of redress on the part of the stockholders, who may have contributed much the larger portion of the assets of the corporation.
We are of the opinion that the shares of stock issued to McLane to secure the payment of the money advanced to the corporation, were illegally issued, and were not entitled to be voted upon at the election for Directors, and that the plaintiffs received a majority of the legal votes cast at the election.
Judgment reversed; and it is further ordered and adjudged that, at the election held on the 5th day of February, A. D. 1868, by the stockholders of the Placerville and Sacramento Valley Bailroad Company, for the election of Directors of said corporation, C. W. Brewster, W. S. Burns, F. A. Bee, A. T. Melvin, B. Landecker, B. B. McBride, J. G-. McCallum, W. H. Cooper, and O. H. Burnham, were duly elected Directors of said corporation.