Court Opinion

ID: 9750944
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:50:48.530054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:29.547263
License: Public Domain

Ryan, J.
(dissenting). I am unable to agree with the holding of the majority opinion that, since the stock was neither authorized nor issued and hence never had a valid existence, this constituted a failure of consideration which rendered the agreement unenforceable. The trial court concluded that the defendants McPike were officers and directors of the corporation and had it in their power to issue, or. cause to be issued, valid certificates for the 200 shares of stock due the plaintiff and that their failure to issue the stock to the plaintiff was a breach of their agreement which entitled the plaintiff to damages. While the court in one paragraph of its finding found that the defendants McPike acknowledged that the plaintiff was entitled to have issued to him certificates representing 200 shares of stock and that they claimed they were at all times ready, willing and able to issue or cause to be issued to the plaintiff certificates for such stock, the court made an affirmative finding that the defendants McPike were requested by Attorney Lockwood on several occasions to come to his office for the purpose of signing the stock certificates as officers of the corpo*249ration and that, although they had agreed to do so, they never had signed the certificates and the plaintiff never had received the stock. The conclusions of the trial court are supported by the subordinate facts. The stock was nonexistent because the defendants McPike, upon finding the venture unprofitable, refused to issue it. To hold that under such circumstances there was a failure of consideration which rendered the contract unenforceable is to reward the McPikes for violation of their contract and to penalize the plaintiff for their refusal to perform.
The judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.
In this opinion King, C. J., concurred.