Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/355

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OUYKENDALIi V. MILES. 34:3 �solution; that on the twenty-first of July, 1876, the said supreme court duly passed an order directing the plaintiff to make and colleet an assessment upon the stockholders of the company to the amount of 75 per cent, of the amount of stock held by them respectively; that he made such assessment ; that the defendant at and before the dissolution held stock to the amount of $4,000 ; that the debts for ■which the assessment was laid were contracted while he was a stock- holder ; and that the assessment upon him was $3,000, "which he had iiot paid, though requested. The defendant demurred. �F. P. Goulding, for defendant. �I. D. Van Dvaee, for plaintiff. �LowELL, C. J. The assessment sought to be recovered in this action was made under the general law of New York governing man- ufacturing corporations, as modified in relation to those established in Herkimer and Cayuga counties by later laws. These statutes are construed and passed upon in Walker v. Grain, 17 Barb. 119; Story v.Furman, 25 N. Y. 214; Hurd v. Tallman, 60 Barb. 272; Cuyken- dall V. Douglass, 19 Hun. 677; Re Dodge e. Stevenson Manuf'g Co. 77 N. Y. 101. The last two of these decisions relate to this assessment and maintain its validity. The allegations of the declaration are suf- firent to bring the defendant within the class of persons .subject to assessment, until he shall show something to the contrary. Sup- posing this to be so, will an action lie in this court to reoover the defendant'» share of the assessment ? �That the receiver of an insolvent corporation, having powers like those of an assignee in insolvency, may sue in his own name in this court, I cannot doubt. Hurd v. Elisabeth, 41 N. J. (12 Vroom.) 1; Ex parte Norwood, 3 Biss. 504; Hunt v. Jackson, 5 Blatchf. 349. These are direct decisions. The cases in -which such actions have been maintained without objection, and others, in which the most eminent judges, while asserting the superior title of domestic attaoh- ing creditors, have said that the action itself was maintainable, are very numerous. Goodwin v. Jones, 3 Mass. 517, per Parsons, G. J. ; May V. Breed, 7 Cush. 15, 42, per Shaw, C. J.; Dunlap v. Rogers, 47 N. H. 281, 287, per Sargent, J.; Hoyt v. Thompson, 5 N. Y. 320, per Ruggles, G. J.; S. C. 19 N. Y. 207, 226, per Comstock, J.; Mer- rick's Estate, 2 Ashm. 435, Mussehnan's Estate, 5 Watts & S. 9; Mann v. Cooke, 20 Conn. 178. �As the rule of the common law concerning the assignment of ordi- nary non-negotiable debts still obtains in Massachusetts, the receiver might be required to sue on such causes of action in the name of the ��� �