Court Opinion

ID: 6906405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 22:01:06.167669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:21.800252
License: Public Domain

BURNETT, J.,
Concurring. — The utmost the defense has shown by its testimony is that it sold lumber to the Northwest Lumber Agency, a corporation in which the plaintiffs had four shares of stock. All the witnesses who spoke on the subject say that the plaintiffs did not receive any of the lumber sold by the defendant or any of the proceeds of the sale thereof. There was no error in denying the defendant’s offer of the unsigned draft of an agreement to the effect that thirteen lumber firms, including the plaintiffs, should sell their output exclusively to the Northwest Lumber Agency as it might require, with draft for 90 per cent of the price attached to each invoice. Such a contract would not make that concern agent for any of the parties agreeing to the arrangement. Moreover, even if they did sell to the Northwest Lumber Agency it seems that the defendant went and did likewise. It does not lie in the mouth of the latter to charge its fellow-sufferers with the default of the insolvent corporation by which they all came to grief. The defendant extended credit to the Northwest Lumber Agency. The stockholders of that corporation are not liable directly for its debts, nor in any event, except to the extent of their unpaid subscriptions to its capital stock: Article XI, Section 3, Oregon Constitution. Although such a liability may exist, it cannot be enforced in this action: Macbeth v. Banfield, 45 Or. 553 (78 Pac. 693, 106 Am. St. Rep. 670); Patterson v. Lynde, 106 U. S. 519 (27 L. Ed. 265, 1 Sup. Ct. Rep. 432). For these reasons I concur in the result of the opinion of Mr. Justice Johns.