such limitation of the meaning of the word “stockholder” is to be found. There are numerous cases in which it is said that a pledgee is a stockholder, and entitled to vote when he appears to be a stockholder on the books of the corporation. In Franklin Bank v. Commercial Bank, 36 Ohio St. 350, plaintiff loaned to one Foote, the president of defendant, a sum of money, and received as security a pledge of the capital stock of defendant owned by such president. Defendant having refused to transfer the shares on its books, plaintiff sued for the conversion of the stock. The court held that he could not recover, on the principle that one corporation will not be allowed to own stock in another corporation in the absence of statutory authority. Said the court: “Were this not so, one corporation, by buying up the majority of the shares of the stock of another, could take the entire management of its business, however foreign such business might be to that which the corporation so purchasing such shares was created to carry on. “* * * Nor would this result follow any the less certainly, if the shares of stock were received in pledge only to secure the payment of a debt, provided the shares were transferred on the books of the company to the name of the pledgee. A person in whose name the stock of the corporation stands on the books of the corporation is as to the corporation a stockholder, and has the right to vote upon the stock. * * * Hence if the plaintiff appeared upon the books of the defendant as the transferee or owner of the two hundred shares of stock represented by the certificate to Foote, it would have the right to vote upon the stock at all meetings of the stockholders of the defendant; and it would be only necessary for it to procure in pledge, as security for money loaned, a majority of the shares of the capital stock of the Commercial Bank, (defendant in the case,) in order to obtain full control of its affairs and take charge of its banking operations.
- * * It therefore follows that the refusal of the defendant to permit the transfer upon its books to the plaintiff of
the two hundred shares of its stock violated no right of the plaintiff, and consequently created no liability on the part of the defendant. Such refusal did not amount to a conversion of the stock. Its action in refusing to transfer was but the denial
