Page:Henry Osborn Taylor, A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations (5th ed, 1905).djvu/680

 § 660.] THE LAW OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. [CHAP. XI. pany, without first providing for the payment of the plaintiff's policy. Vice-Chancellor Page-Wood said : " I apprehend that under these stipulations the policy-holders have no right to meddle with anything, wise or unwise, which the company may do in accordance with the deed. For example, if the company invest in a hazardous or even ruinous security, the policy-holders are not entitled to interfere. It would be extremely mischievous to allow such interference. Still, the conduct of the company might reach a point of absolute waste of the assets in contravention of the provisions of the deed, at which the right of the policy-holders to intervene might be considered to arise. . . . The principle on which the plaintiff's case is founded here, is, that the fund which was held out to him as his security, and to which he has himself con- tributed, shall not be misapplied contrary to the provisions of the deed. He says that he comes here to prevent a waste of the assets. His position is somewhat analogous to that of a person having a contingent debt against a testator's estate, who may come into this court to prevent the estate being paid away to legatees, or wasted, or thrown away by the executors. The argument of the company, as I understand it, goes this length, that the policy-holder is simply a contingent future creditor minus the personal remedy. If that were the whole of the contract, it would be very different from what persons who insured in the company must have supposed. They could not have imagined that it was to be in the power of the directors of the company to destroy all their interests under their policies, leaving them without redress until their policies should have matured by death. ... In my opinion the plain- tiff did acquire under that contract such a species of interest in the fund as would entitle him to interfere to save the property from being wasted contrary to the provisions of the deed." 1 § 660. Not only has a creditor the right to restrain an Rights of improper dissipation of funds of the corporation regarding actually in its possession, but he has the further thecorpol r ' l ght, ^ these do not suffice for the payment of the i 1 Hem. & Mil. 707-708. See, also, Evans i Coventry, 5 De G., M. & G. 911; In re State Fire Ins. Co., 1 Hem. & Mil. 457. 660 An insurance company has no right to turn its policy-holders over to another company against their consent, and policy-holders are un-