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31 Mich. 268

Talbot v. Scripps

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided January 29, 1875

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1875-01-29

<p>Corporate wrongs: Joint injury: Remedy: Parties: Stockholders. The legal redress for a corporate wrong which constitutes a joint injury to all the stockholders should be at the instance of the corporation, which represents all for •the purposes of legal remedy; and a stockholder is not entitled to bring suit in his own name for the damage done to him individually, at least not without a showing that the corporate authorities have refused after proper application to act.</p> <p>Conspiracy to destroy corporate franchises: Corporate wrong: Remedy : Parties. A conspiracy with a portion of the directors of a printing and publishing corporation to suspend and destroy the business and franchises of the company, whereby the board of directors of such corporation are induced to suspend the publication of their daily and weekly newspapers for the benefit of a rival establishment, is a corporate wrong, for which the proper remedy is a.suit brought in the corporate name;</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The wrong alleged will be seen to be a corporate wrong, in which all the stockholders are proportionally interested, and any legal redress should be at the instance of the corporation, if the board of directors will consent to demand it. There is no allegation that the board has been requested to bring suit and has refused. Under these circumstances, we know of no ground on which the suit can be maintained. As well might an individual stockholder bring suit to recover his share of corporate funds which had been lost by negligence or embezzlement, or his proportion of insurance money on the corporate property destroyed by fire. The injury counted on is not a separate injury to each of the stockholders, but a joint injury to all, and the corporation represents all for the purposes of legal remedy; at least until it is shown that the corporate authorities refuse after proper application to act.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Curtiss v. Wilmarth

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1875-01-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently June 1940

10 state decisions

3018751880189019001910192019301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Cooley, J.

¶1This is an action by a stockholder in a printing and publishing corporation against two persons who are alleged to have conspired with two "of the directors of the corporation to suspend and destroy the business and franchises of the company, and to have induced such directors to suspend the publication of their daily and weekly newspapers for the benefit of a rival establishment, thereby rendering the plaintiff’s interest in the corporation worthless. The wrong alleged will be seen to be a corporate wrong, in which all the stockholders are proportionally interested, and any legal redress should be at the instance of the corporation, if the board of directors will consent to demand it. There is no allegation that the board has been requested to bring suit and has refused. Under these circumstances, we know of no ground on which the suit can be maintained.. As well might an individual stockholder bring suit to recover his share of corporate funds which had been lost by negligence or embezzlement, or his proportion of insurance money on the corporate property destroyed by fire. The injury counted on is not a separate injury to each of the stockholders, but a joint injury to all, and the corporation represents all for the purposes of legal remedy; at least until it is shown that the corporate authorities refuse after proper application to act.

¶2The judgment must be affirmed, with costs.

Graves, Ch. J., and Campbell, J., concurred.Christiancy, J., did not sit in this case.
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