like decisions abound in the English courts, and in numerous American cases, to some of which we refer. Adderly v. Storm, 6 Hill, 624; Rosevelt v. Brown, 11 N. Y. 148; Bank v. Burnham, 11 Cush. 183; Magruder v. Colston, 44 Md. 349; Crease v. Bab- cock, 10 Metc. (Mass.) 535; Wheelock v. Kost, 77 IIL 296; in re Bank, 18 N. Y. 199; Hale v. Walker, 31 Iowa, 344 For this several reasons are given. One is that he is estopped from denying his liability by voluntarily holding himself out to the public as the owner of the stock, and his denial of ownership is inconsistent with the representation he has made; another is that by taking the legal title he has released the former owner; and a third is that, after having taken the apparent ownership. and thus become entitled to receive dividends, vote at elections, and enjoy all the privileges of ownership, it would be inequitable to allow him to refuse the responsibilities of a stockholder.” In Pullman v. Upton, 96 U. S. 328, the court said: “So in Bank v. Burnham, 11 Cush. 183, it was decided that a transfer of stock on the books of the bank, intended merely to be held as collaterial security, makes the holder liable for the bank debts. It was said that the creditor was to be considered the absolute owner, and that his arrangement with his debtor cannot change the character of the ownership.” In Magruder v. Colston, 44 Md, 349, where it was held that the pledgee whose transfer was recorded was liable as a stockholder, the court said: “Stockholders are those who appear on the books of the bank as owners of shares, and who are entitled to manage its affairs, and they can only throw off the liabilities incident to that relation by transferrirg the stock.”
That the word “stockholder,” as used by the legislature, was, in the absence of any qualification of its meaning, understood by the legislature to be sufficient to embrace a pledgee with a legal title to the stock because of a transfer on the books, is clear from the provisions of § 2933, Compiled Laws, expressly declaring that the holding of stock by a pledgee shall not render the holder a stockholder, within the meaning of that section, rendering stockholders liable for debts of the corporation. It is significant that in § 2931, prescribing the qualification of a voter, and declaring that he must be a bona fide stockholder, no
