12
The Green Bag
estate which it may take for purposes of enjoyment. If a corporation may take land with the power of conveying it, the title of its grantee will not be affected by its subsequent dissolution.* Where a corporation takes a determi nable fee for the purposes of enjoyment, the land should upon its dissolution revert to the original grantor or his heirs.t But the grantor to a corpora tion always divests himself of his fee and in condemnation proceedings asserts his claim to compensation as for a total loss, both of the present ownership and the reversion. If a corporation is au thorized to purchase land for certain purposes, and for no other, a deed of land executed to it, by one having ca pacity to convey, will vest title in it, which title can be assailed, on the ground that the purchase is ultra vires, only by the state or by a shareholder but not by the grantor, t The owner's right to object to a taking by condemna tion must be made before the date of vesting of title by the order of a court. A court of justice will not aid a corpora tion to do that which is impliedly for bidden by its charter or by the law. I Upon the dissolution of a private cor poration, all its estate, whether con sisting of lands or goods, passes into administration, for the benefit of its creditors first, and its shareholders afterward.§ But inasmuch as neither the creditors nor the stockholders of a public service corporation can sustain a relation of ownership to the land of the corporation except as successors to the rights of the corporation in that land, it is certain that, when abandon ment is definitely made of the use for • People v. O'Brien, 111 N. Y. 1. t 1 Blackstone 484. } Hough v. Cook County Land Co., 73 1ll. 23, 24 Am. Rep. 230. || Pacific Railroad Co. v. Seely, 45 Mo. 212; Case v. Kelly, 133 U. S. 21; 10 S. Ct. 216, 33 L. Ed. 513. § Health v. Barmore, 50 N. Y. 302; Cyclopedia of Law, X, 1131; XXI, G 6 a.
which the land was acquired, the private ownership of the grantor to the public service corporation having been extin guished by purchase, the only possible reversionary of the fee is the community. As, however, the jus disponendi is an incident of ownership, whenever a cor poration has the power to own land it has the power to dispose of it in like manner, as a natural person might do.* Although as against the state the cor poration may not have the power to hold land to which it has acquired a fee-simple title, and although it may hold it subject to the constant risk of intervention by the state, yet, until the state intervenes to escheat it, the cor poration may transfer it to another and pass a good title to him. A private corporation may grant to another cor poration the right to use such land for any purpose within the powers of the grantee, although such purpose was not within the powers of the grantor.t Although a corporation may not have power to hold particular land for the reason that it is not required for the purpose of the corporation, yet it may sell such land and pass a good title to the purchaser. X But the corporation can transfer only such right to the exer cise of its franchises with reference to the land as the statutes creating and regulating it permit and it actually enjoys. II It is in the relation of the franchise to the land and other prop erty that the value of the land and of the franchise principally consists. The only substantial value of the tangible prop erty is the right to use it in connection with the franchise, and hence it is in* Benton v. Elizabeth, 61 N.J. L. 411, 39 Atl. 683, 906, affirming 41 N. J. L. 693, 40 Atl. 1132. t Ibid. t Freeman v. Sea View Hotel Co., 67 N. T. Eq. 68, 40 Atl. 218; Reddell v. J. B. Watkins Land Co., (Tex. Civ. App.) 37 S. W. 608; Beggaley v. Pitts burgh (<rlc.) Iron Co., 90 Fed. 636, 33 C. C. A. 202. || Blair v. City of Chicago, 201 U. S. 400, 481, 488.
