corporate dissolution
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 302 U.S. 120 - Chicago Title & Trust Co. v. Forty-One Thirty-Six Wilcox Bldg. Corp. · 1937Most cited · 385 citing opinions
a private corporation in this country can exist only under the express law of the state or sovereignty by which it was created. Its dissolution puts an end to its existence, the result of which may be likened to the death of a natural person. There must be some statutory authority for the prolongation of its life, even for litigation purposes.
How the Supreme Court has restated “corporate dissolution”
Each Supreme Court definition of “corporate dissolution,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “corporate dissolution”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “corporate dissolution” — 842 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1907–1937
- ORIGINAL
A corporation without shareholders, without officers to manage its business, without property with which to do business, and without the right lawfully to do business, is dissolved by the operation of the law which brings this condition into existence.
by operation
a corporation which has been dissolved is as if it did not exist, and the result of the dissolution cannot be distinguished from the death of natural person in its effect