Minnesota Supreme Court, 1894

Clarke v. Cold Spring Opera House Co.

Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided June 22, 1894 · Buck, Gilpillan, Took

58 Minn. 16; 59 N.W. 632; 1894 Minn. LEXIS 342 (Minnesota Reports)

Counsel

G. W. Stewart, for appellant., Bruckart & Brower, for respondents.

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Citation treatment has not been reviewed for this case. The notes below come from the citation graph and the Minnesota Revisor's amendment records, not from a review of how later courts treated this decision.

(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1926, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

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Cases that cite this one

6 later published cases cite this decision.

Sheffield King Milling Co. v. Chicago Great Western Railroad (Minn. 1926)
Sullivan v. Farnsworth (Tenn. 1915)
Harper v. Carroll (Minn. 1896)
Rehbein v. Rahr (Wis. 1901)
Elkhart Nat. Bank v. Northwestern Guaranty Loan Co. (3d Cir. 1898)
Nettersheim v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. Co. (Minn. 1894)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Gilpillan, C. J.

The record is not in condition to enable us to review the court’s finding as to how much stock was owned by each ■of the stockholder defendants. The stock book of the corporation was introduced in evidence. A portion of its contents is set forth in the settled casé, but whether all that related to the ownership of the stock does not appear. The portions of it not set forth may .'have contained evidence on the point. The case is within Acker Post No. 21, G. A. R., v. Carver, 23 Minn. 567.

The number of shares outstanding is found to be thirty-eight, at the par value of $2o per share; the number held by the defendant stockholders nineteen.

The court found each defendant stockholder liable, not for the full par value of his stock, but for the proportion of plaintiff’s debt which the par value of his stock bears to the par value of the stock outstanding. The proceeding being under 1878 G. S. ch. 76, the plaintiff ought to have brought in all the stockholders, which he could have done at any time, or shown some reason — as, for instance, insolvency, death, or inability to reach by process those omitted— *20for not doing so. There is no fact found in the case to suggest a reason for charging any stockholder more than the proportion of the debt which his stock bears to all the outstanding stock. The plaintiff ought not to be permitted by leaving some out to charge those brought in any more than he could have charged them had-he brought in all of them.

Order affirmed.

Buck, J., absent, took no part.

(Opinion published 59 N. W. 633.)

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.