Court Opinion

ID: 9864783
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:11:28.408767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:49.616513
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Adams,
concurring specially.
Under the pleadings, I am unable to see how the district court could have done differently than to overrule *164the plaintiffs ’ demurrer' to the answer of the association, and since plaintiffs elected to stand thereon, the judgment of dismissal followed as a matter of course.
The demurrer searched the whole record, and admitted facts well pleaded. The pleadings affirmatively show that the stockholders were subject to the by-laws of the association, but that the plaintiff stockholders were erroneously paid or credited with amounts in direct contravention of such by-laws. If the court had upheld the demurrer, it would have been tantamount to a declaration that money paid by mistake cannot be recovered, and would have meant that errors of omission or commission on the part of the officers of the association are beyond the power of the court to correct. To have sustained the demurrer would also have had the effect of destroying that mutuality of interest which is the primary object to be accomplished by associations of this character. The association has only one common treasury, in which the stockholders all have a proportionate interest, and it is obvious that money cannot be paid even innocently therefrom to one stockholder contrary to the by-laws without a corresponding reduction of funds belonging to other stockholders. Equity calls for a proper readjustment if made in apt time; there is nothing revolutionary in this. It is the gist of the opinion and it must not be interpreted to extend beyond the scope of it's language.