New Orleans Debenture Redemption Company of Louisiana v. Louisiana/Opinion of the Court

by Rufus Wheeler Peckham

United States Supreme Court

180 U.S. 320

New Orleans Debenture Redemption Company of Louisiana  v.  Louisiana

 Argued: December 13, 14, 1900. --- Decided: February 25, 1901

This suit was brought against the defendant corporation alone, to obtain, among other things, a decree enjoining the company and its officers from acting as a corporation on the ground that its alleged charter was a nullity. It was also brought to forfeit the charter in case it should be held that it had been legally organized, and such forfeiture was prayed on the ground that the company had violated the law by not receiving cash on payment of its shares.

It is now claimed that the company defendant could not properly have been made a sole defendant in an action to declare null its charter to be a corporation, and that therefore a decree in such suit declaring the company not to be a corporation (while making no decree upon the question of a violation of the charter by not taking payment for its stock in cash) condemns the corporators and takes away their property without a hearing from them and is not due process of law, they claiming that the franchise to be a corporation was their property exclusively, and did not belong to the corporation as such.

It is also asserted that the state was not rightfully or properly a plaintiff in the suit, and that the institution of the suit in the name of the state was without authority of law and was therefore null and void, and did not constitute due process of law. What is meant by this latter claim is stated by the plaintiff in error as follows:

'We do not wish to be understood as dissenting from the doctrine of the plenary power of the state over the subject-matter of creating or authorizing such corporations, and we concede that her power to grant or withhold charters, as well as to grant or withhold authority to others, to constitute such corporations, is unlimited. What we here insist is, that where the state has acted through her legislature and authorized the organization of the corporation, and such corporation has been constituted under her authority, that, in common with other persons, it cannot, after its creation, be denied the common right to pursue any lawful business or enterprise not inconsistent with the objects and purposes of its cretion; and that is precisely what the state is attempting by this suit to do in relation to the company, plaintiff in error, in this cause.'

The first inquiry which presents itself is as to whether it was proper and legal to make the company alone a defendant, and as to the sufficiency of the means by which it was brought into court in an action where the relief sought was to declare the pretended charter of the company a nullity from the beginning, and where an injunction was sought to prevent the further action of the defendant corporation.

The company claimed as a fact to be organized under the act No. 36 of the Laws of Louisiana of 1888. The 1st and 3d sections of the act read as follows:

'Sec. 1. That it shall be lawful for any number of persons, not less than three, upon complying with the provisions of the laws of this state governing corporations in general, to form themselves into and constitute a corporation for the purpose of carrying on any lawful business or enterprise, not otherwise specially provided for, and not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of this state, . . . provided, no such corporation shall engage in stock-jobbing business of any kind.'

'Sec. 3. That no stockholder of such corporation shall ever be held liable or responsible for the contracts or defaults of such corporations in any further sum than the unpaid balance due to the company on the shares owned by him.'

In the answer of the company it is alleged that it was organized by the authority of this statute and that it duly filed its articles of association, stating therein at large the character of its business. It was provided in that charter that all legal process should be served upon the president of the company. The evidence showed that the company in fact did business under its charter and amendments for several years as a corporation, and claimed to be legally organized as such. It also appeared from the evidence that its stock was subscribed for by various individuals, and was issued to such subscribers or their assigns. It also issued its debentures and did business in accordance with the charter, and, as claimed, under and by the authority of the act of the legislature above mentioned. It made contracts and it elected officers who thereafter acted as such and assumed to represent the company as a corporation doing business under the laws of the state. It was thus a de facto corporation, and those who contracted with it as such could not set up as a defense, when sued by it upon those contracts, that it was not a corporation or that its organization was a nullity. None but the state could call its existence in question. Chubb v. Upton, 95 U.S. 665, 24 L. ed. 523; Baltimore & P. R. Co. v. Fifth Baptist Church, 137 U.S. 568, 571, 34 L. ed. 784, 786, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 185. The supreme court of Louisiana, in this case, holds that by the laws of that state the defendant as a de facto corporation was properly brought into court by the service of process on its acting president. The state can therefore treat this de facto corporation as such, for the purpose of calling it into court and asking for a decree enjoining it from acting as a corporation, on the ground of the nullity of the organization; in other words, on the ground that it has no right to be a corporation, and that it is not a corporation de jure. For that purpose it is not necessary that the individuals who were corporators or officers of the company be made defendants and service of process by made upon them. The company itself may be brought into court by service upon its officer appointed pursuant to the charter under which it assumed to act, and in which it is provided that the president shall be served with process against the corporation.

Section 2593, Revised Statutes of Louisiana, provides:

'An action by petition may be brought before the proper district court or parish court by the district attorney, or district attorney pro tempore, and for the parish of Orleans by the attorney general, or any other person interested, in the name of the state upon his own information, or upon the information of any private party, against the party or parties offending in the following cases:

'First, when any person shall usurp, intrude into, or unlawfully hold or exercise any public office or franchise within this state; or . . . Third, when any association or number of persons shall act within this state as a corporation without being duly incorporated.

'Sec. 2595. Service shall be made in such cases . . . the same as in other civil suits. . . .

'Sec. 2602. When defendant, whether a person or corporation against whom such action shall have been brought, shall be adjudged guilty of usurping or intruding into or unlawfully holding or exercising any office, franchise, or privilege, judgment shall be rendered that such defendant be excluded from such office, franchise, or privilege, and also that the plaintiff recover costs against such defendant and such damages as are proved to have been sustained.'

The state court has held that under these provisions, in such a case as this, the service of process upon the defendant company is sufficient to bring that company into court as a de facto corporation, even though not legally organized. If the company actually appear pursuant to such service, it surely must be enough so far as the corporation is concerned.

Pursuant to the service of process upon its president the company appeared in court, put in pleadings, set up as a defense that it was a legal and valid corporation under the act already cited, and claimed judgment in its favor. All this gave jurisdiction to the court to proceed with the case and try the issues, whether the defendant were or were not a valid corporation. But it is said that in such suit even that question cannot be decided, and that the presence of the individual corporators is indispensable because, as is stated, the franchise, to be a corporation, belongs to them, and not to the corporation itself, and the case of Memphis & L. R. R. Co. v. Railroad Comrs. 112 U.S. 609, 619, sub nom. Memphis & L. R. R. Co. v. Berry, 28 L. ed. 837, 841, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 299, is cited as authority for the purpose of showing that such franchise cannot be taken away without making the corporators parties.

In a certain sense the franchise to be a corporation does belong to the corporators in so far as that it does not pass by a mortgage by the company of its charter and franchises, and a sale under the foreclosure of the mortgage does not confer on the purchaser the right to be a corporation. This was held in above case. The right to be a corporation was conferred upon certain individuals, and the court held could not by the language used pass to purchasers on a foreclosure, the franchise not in fact having been mortgaged, and the law not providing for such a mortgage. But a proceeding by the state against a de facto corporation to forbid its acting any longer as such on the ground that no legal right exists for it to be a corporation, we have no doubt is well brought against the company alone, treating it as such de facto corporation, and serving process upon its officers in accordance with the charter or law under which it assumes to be acting as such corporation. And as we remark, in another connection below, the shareholders or corporators by their action in making themselves parties to the suit, appealing from the decree and arguing their objections before the supreme court, have cured any possible defect which might otherwise have existed, founded upon an alleged defect of parties.

The injunction which was issued as part of the judgment was simply a means of carrying out what the court decreed, and whether an injunction prior thereto and preliminary in its nature had been granted ex parte or not was immaterial. The final in junction was part of the relief sought by the action, and when the court decided such action in favor of the plaintiff the injunction was to follow as matter of course. We are of opinion that for the purpose of obtaining a decree beclaring the charter void and restraining the officers from acting as a corporation, the state through its attorney general was a proper party to bring the action, and for the reasons stated it was well brought against the corporation alone and the final injunction was properly issued.

Nor do the facts in this case furnish any foundation for the claim on the part of the plaintiffs in error that the state after having granted the right to be a corporation could not, after the corporation was created, deny to it the common right to pursue any lawful business or enterprise not inconsistent with the object and purposes of its creation. The claim rests upon the proposition that the state cannot deny to the company the common right to pursue any lawful business or enterprise. If the business or enterprise be not lawful, the whole argument fails. If not created for a lawful purpose the company was not created at all. It is not a question of the right to do certain business after it was authorized by the state to organize as such corporation. Its legal creation depended upon the lawful character of the work it was organized to do. Whether the business by lawful is, in a case like this, a question of local law, and a decision by the state court upon that question is not reviewable here. The right to be a corporation was given by the state upon the terms that the business transacted should be lawful, and it certainly must rest with the state to determine whether the business thus transacted by a corporation is or is not lawful. Whether such business could be done by individuals without the intervention of a corporation is not to the point. The state having the right to say upon what terms and upon what conditions it will grant the right of incorporation, it must have the right to determine through its courts whether those conditions have been complied with. It granted the right by the act of 1888 to transact any lawful business, as a corporation, upon filing articles, etc. It rests with its own courts to say whether the business transacted by such assumed corporation, by virtue of that act, is or is not lawful. Having decided that it was unlawful, the court had the right, under the state law, to declare the charter null.

Then as to the rights of the individual corporators. Has their property been in any way taken without due process of law by this decree? Clearly it has not. Nor have they been denied the equal protection of the laws. As already stated, the decree adjudges the charter, under color of which the defendant company claimed corporate existence, to be null and void, and it enjoins the officers and stockholders from acting as a corporation, in the terms already set forth. This simply holds the property until it can be properly disposed of according to law.

The original decree was entered after a trial upon the merits, and the record shows that the officers and many of the stockholders were present at the trial, and were witnesses and examined by the counsel for the company, and that in truth they made the whole defense. There was no dispute in regard to the facts, and the whole question was resolved into one of law, whether the business which was confessedly conducted by the corporation was or was not a lawful one under the laws of Louisiana. The court refused to hear evidence that the defendant's officers acted in good faith, believing they were acting lawfully. That also was a question of local law, whether such facts constituted any defense, and the decision of the court on that subject is not reviewable here. As a result of all the evidence, the trial court held the business transacted by the company was unlawful for a corporation under the laws of Louisiana, and decreed accordingly. The shareholders then, pursuant to the law of Louisiana, petitioned the court to permit them to intervence in the case and to appeal from the decree because they were interested therein; and leave being given, they appealed to and were heard in the supreme court, and that court, while affirming the final decree, at the same time reversed the order appointing a liquidator, and left the whole question open in regard to such appointment. The corporators have not in any manner been impeded or embarrassed in the presentation of their defense by not being formal parties to the record at the trial in the court of first instance. Many were present, as a matter of fact, and the defense which they interpose is one of law upon undisputed facts. There has been no taking of any property belonging to shareholders, and whatever may be done hereafter, whether by liquidator or receiver, can only be done upon notice to them, as parties to the action and after full hearing of their claims.

It is certain, therefore, that their rights have not been improperly interfered with or their property taken under or pursuant to the decree of the trial court. We are of opinion that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana must be affirmed.

Notes