Stone v. Chisolm/Opinion of the Court

The statutes referred to in the complaint are the 1367th section of the General Statutes of South Carolina, the act of December 10, 1869, entitled 'An act to regulate the formation of corporations,' and 'sundry other laws of said state.' This last reference would broaden the question certified, so as to embrace the inquiry whether the remedy insisted on was conferred by any law of the state; but counsel for the plaintiffs in error disclaim reliance upon any provisions of the statutes, except those specifically referred to, which they have accordingly rinted with their brief. Section 1367 of the General Statutes of South Carolina occurs in a general act on the subject of the organization and government of corporations, contained in the revision of 1882, in chapter 38, under the sub-title 'of corporations organized under charters.' It reads as follows:

'Sec. 1367. The total amount of debts which such corporations shall at any time owe shall not exceed the amount of its capital stock actually paid in; and, in case of excess, the directors in whose administration it shall happen shall be personally liable for the same, both to the contractor or contractors and to the corporation. Such of the directors as may have been absent when the said excess was contracted or created, or who may have voted against such contract or agreement, and caused his vote to be recorded in the minutes of the board, may respectively prevent such liability from attaching to themselves by forth with giving notice of the fact to a general meeting of the stockholders, which they are authorized to call for that purpose. The provisions of this section shall not apply to debts of railroad corporations secured by mortgage.'

This provision was a re-enactment of, and consequently superseded, a similar provision contained in section 33 of the act of December 10, 1869, under which the Marine & River Phosphate Company had been organized as a corporation, and which being a general law was subject to modification and repeal. The language of that section was as follows: 'Sec. 33. The whole amount of the debts which any such company at any time owes shall not exceed the amount of its capital stock actually paid in; and, in case of any excess, the directors under whose administration it occurs, shall be jointly and severally liable to the extent of such excess, for all the debts of the company then existing, and for all that are contracted, so long as they respectively continue in office, and until the debts are reduced to the amount of the capital stock: provided, that any of the directors who are absent at the time of contracting any debt contrary to the foregoing provisions, or who object thereto, may exempt themselves from liability by forthwith giving notice of the fact to the stockholders at the meeting they may call for that purpose.'

The act of 1869 also contained the following:

'Sec. 35. When any of the officers of a company are liable, by the provisions of this act, to pay the debts of the company, or any part thereof, any person to whom they are so liable may have an action against any one or more of said officers, and the declaration in such action shall state the claim against the company and the grounds on which the plaintiff expects to charge the defendants, personally; and such action may be brought, notwithstanding the pendency of an action against the company for the recovery of the same claim or demand; and both of the actions may be prosecuted until the plaintiff obtains the payment of his debt, and the cost of both actions.'

This section now appears as section 1401 of the General Statutes, but under a subdivision of 'Provisions applicable solely to corporations under class I;' and this class is defined by section 1377 as 'all labor, agricultural, manufacturing, industrial, mining, or companies or associations of like nature,' the organization and government of which is the subject of chapter 39, entitled 'Of corporations organized under general statutes.' On the other hand, section 1367 of the General Statutes, which, as we have seen, corresponds to and supersedes section 33 of the act of 1869, is contained in chapter 38 of the General Statutes under the head 'Of corporations organized under charters.' But section 1370 of the same chapter, under a subdivision designating 'manufacturing companies,' provides that 'all manufacturing companies which shall be incorporated in this state shall have all the powers and rpivileges, and be subject to all the duties, liabilities, and other provisions contained in sect ons 1361 to 1369, inclusive, of this chapter, unless the said corporations be specially exempted therefrom by their respective charters.'

It thus appears that, although section 35 of the act of 1869 furnished the remedy for enforcing the liability imposed by section 33 of the same act, the former has been superseded by section 1401, and the latter by section 1367 of the General Statutes, but with a totally different relation in the latter from that sustained by the corresponding sections in the former, so that it cannot be said that the action given by and described in section 1401 of the General Statutes applies as the remedy expressly prescribed for enforcing the liability imposed by section 1367. It follows that if section 1401 applies to the Marine & River Phosphate Company section 1367 does not. Either there is no such liability as is sought to be enforced in the present action, or the remedy resorted to cannot rest upon the section cited as expressly conferring it.

It is argued, indeed, on behalf of the defendants in error, that section 1367, which declares the liability of the directors in the case stated in the complaint, cannot apply, because the Marine & River Phosphate Company is not a corporation organized under a charter, but under a general law, that provision being applicable, it is said, only to those of the former description. But we deem it unnecessary to consider and decide that question, because no special remedy being prescribed by statute for enforcing the liability defined by that section from a consideration of its nature, and the circumstances which are made the conditions of it, we are led to the conclusion that the only appropriate remedy in the courts of the United States is by a suit in equity.

The conditions of the personal liability of the directors of the corporation, expressed in the statute, are that there shall be debts of the corporation in excess of the capital stock actually paid in, to which the directors sought to be charged shall have assented, and this liability is for the entire excess both to the creditors and to the corporation. To ascertain the existence of the liability in a given case requires an account to be taken of the amount of the corporate indebtedness, and of the amount of the capital stock actually paid in, facts which the directors, upon whom the liability is imposed, have a right to have determined, once for all, in a proceeding which shall conclude all who have an adverse interest, and a right to participate in the benefit to result from enforcing the liability. Otherwise the facts which constitute the basis of liability might be determined differently by juries in several actions, by which some creditors might obtain satisfaction and others be defeated. The evident intention of the provision is that the liability shall be for the common benefit of all entitled to enforce it according to their interest, an apportionment which, in case there cannot be satisfaction for all, can only be made in a single proceeding to which all interested can be made parties.

The case cannot be distinguished from that of Honner v. Henning, 93 U.S. 228, the reasoning and result in which we reaffirm. It is immaterial that in the present case it does not appear that there are other creditors than the plaintiffs in error. There can be but one rule for construing the section, whether the creditors be one or many. To the question certified, therefore, it must be answered that an action at law will not lie, and that the only remedy is by a suit in equity.

The judgment is accordingly affirmed.