Court Opinion

ID: 9418363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:23:14.123398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:02.072882
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Clarke,
dissenting.
I greatly regret that I cannot concur in the conclusion of the court just announced.
. That the certificate of the Circuit Court of Appeals is longer and more detailed than is usual is sufficiently explained by the unusual character óf the facts in the case and of the questions of law involved. The certificate concludes with this statement:
“However, we consider that No. 5 presents a question of law which is, in the view most favorable to plaintiff, the ultimate one; and we desire that this question be.answered, without prejudice from the inclusion of Others in this certificate, if it shall be thought that the inclusion of. the *181others is not in accordance with the practicé of the supreme court in this respect.”
Question No. 5 is in the alternative, viz:
“5a. When it appeared that the Cliffs had interests ánd desires pertaining to the new lease which might conflict with the course Kaufman and Breitung desired the Arctic to take, did the Cliffs and Mather perform every duty which by law rested upon him as director of the Arctic and through him upon the Cliffs when Mather withdrew from any further participation in the matter and notified Kaufman and Breitung that they could go ahead and make for the Arctic a contract satisfactory to them, and that the Cliffs and Mather would acquiesce therein? or,
. “5b. Was it the duty of Mather as director in the Arctic, either to disclose to Kaufman and Breitung what he had done and the knowledge he had acquired as an officer of the Cliffs and on behalf of the Cliffs, or else to resign as a director in the Arctic?”
While these two questions run into each other and could, perhaps, have been written as one, nevertheless, in my judgment, each presents a question of law, arising upon recited facts, and each. is stated with sufficient precision to bring it within, the terms of § 239 of the Judicial Code and Rule 37 of this court, and I therefore think that these two questions, at least, should have been answered, or that this court should have required that the whole record of the case be sent up for its consideration.