Hill v. Merchants Mut Ins Co
Decision Date | 31 March 1890 |
Citation | 134 U.S. 515,10 S.Ct. 589,33 L.Ed. 994 |
Parties | HILL v. MERCHANTS' MUT. INS. CO. 1 |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This writ of error brings up for re-examination a judgment of the supreme court of Missouri, and presents the question whether a certain statute, to which that judgment gave effect, impaired the obligation of a contract arising out of a subscription by Britton A. Hill to the stock of an insurance company created by the laws of Missouri.
By the second section of an act of the Missouri legislature, approved March 3, 1857, creating the Washington Insurance Company, it was provided, in reference to subscriptions to its stock, that The same act contained the following provisions: "This act shall be, and the same is hereby declared, a public act, and the same is hereby declared, a public act, and the same shall be deemed and construed as such; and the corporation established by this act shall be, and the same is hereby exempted from the operation of sections seven, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen of article first of the act entitled "An act concerning corporations," approved November 23, 1855; and said sections shall be deemed as repealed, so far as the same concerns the corporation hereby established."
Sections 7, 13, 14, 15 ,16, and 18 of the above act of 1855, from the operation of which the Washington Insurance Company was ths exempted, are as follows:
previous notice of his intention, and the amount of the debt or deficiency, if he resides within the county, or, if not within the county, to his agent, if he have any within the county; otherwise to the clerk or cashier or some other officer of the corporation, unless such stockholder, his agent, or the clerk or other officer, on demand and notice as aforesaid, shall disclose and show to the execution creditor, or the said officer, corporate property, or estate subject to execution sufficient to satisfy said execution and all fees.
Rev. St. Mo. 1855, pp. 371-373.
By an act of the legislature of Missouri approved February 9, 1859, the Excelsior Insurance Company was created. That act is as follows:
'Section 1. That an insurance company be, and is hereby, established in the city of St. Louis, to be known by the name and style of the 'Excelsior Insurance Company,' the stockholders of which are hereby declared a body corporate and politic, with the same amount of capital stock and period of existence, and the same rights, privileges, and restrictions, as were conferred upon the 'Washington Insurance Company' of St. Louis, by an act of the general assembly of the state of Missouri approved March the third, eighteen u ndred and fifty-seven, with the exception of so much of section eight of said act as declares the same a public act, and exempts said corporation from the operation of section eighteen of article first of the act, entitled 'An act concerning corporations,' approved November the twenty-third, eighteen hundred and fifty-five.
Section 6, art. 8, of the constitution of Missouri, which went into effect in 1865, provides as follows: 'Dues from private corporations shall be secured by such means as may be prescribed by law; but in all cases each stockholder shall be individually liable, over and above the stock by him or her owned, and any amount unpaid thereon, in a further sum at least equal in amount to such stock.'
In order to give effect to this constitutional provision, the legislature, by an act which went into effect March 19, 1866, amended section 13 of the above act of 1855, so as to read as follows:
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