Adams v. President of Wiscasset Bank

• Decision Date: 01 October 1821
• Parties: ADAMS v. THE PRESIDENT, & c. OF WISCASSET BANK
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

1 Me. 361

ADAMS v. THE PRESIDENT, & c. OF WISCASSET BANK

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, Lincoln

October, 1821

THE writ in this case having been served by a deputy sheriff who was at the same time a stockholder in the Bank, the defendants pleaded that fact in abatement, alleging that the deputy sheriff being a stockholder and so a party to the suit, the writ should have been served by a coroner, within the provision of Revised Stat. ch. 93.

Respondeat ouster awarded.

Bailey and Allen, for the plaintiff.

The writ does not run against the corporators, personally, but against the corporation. It is not like a process against a town, where the goods of each inhabitant may be taken and sold; for here nothing is liable but the corporate property. The reason, therefore, why the sheriff was disabled to serve process against towns where a deputy sheriff was a party does not exist here, and the service is good. If it is not the evils resulting will be incalculable. No one can know who are corporators, but themselves; and they may so change their stock as to defeat every attempt to serve process upon them. And if, pending the suit, the corporation should entirely change its members, still, it is the same party to the record. An individual, therefore, is not a party, merely by being a corporator; and yet it is only where the sheriff is a party that the coroner serves the writ. Even where the inhabitants of the sheriff's own town are party to the suit, his disability to serve the process is now removed by Revised Stat. ch. 92.; his interest in such case being too trivial to be regarded; much less ought it to be regarded in the present case.

R Williams, e contra.

Corporations are but collections of many individuals into one body. Kyd on Corporations 13. They are liable to be assessed for poor rates, within 43 Eliz. ch. 2. and are deemed occupiers, and inhabitants. Rex v. Gardiner, Cowp. 79. 2 Inst. 697. 703. cited in 5 Cranch. 65. That all the members of the corporation are parties to the suit, results from the act of incorporation, by which certain individuals therein named, and their successors, are declared a corporation; and from the law that no member can be a witness in such suit. 7 Mass. 398. 10 Johns. 95. 10 East 293. in note. 5 D. & E. 174. 12 Mass. 360. 16 Mass. 118. And is more clearly laid down in Bank of U.S. v. Deveaux, 5 Cranch 61. Hawkes v. the county of Kennebec, 7 Mass. 461. Inhabitants of Lincoln Co. v. Prince, 2 Mass. 544. First parish in Sutton v. Cole, 8 Mass. 96. Society v. Wheeler, 2 Gall. 105. Indeed a banking corporation is a mere partnership; and the sheriff in this case is disabled from serving the process, in the same manner, and for the same reasons, as if it were against a mercantile house in which he was a partner.

OPINION

MELLEN, C. J. at the succeeding term in Cumberland delivered the opinion of the Court, as follows.

The question presented by the plea in abatement in this case does not appear to have been decided in Massachusetts; nor is there any statute provision which in express terms embraces it. It depends on the construction of the statute which relates to the service of civil processes.

The first section of Revised Stat. ch. 93. provides " that every coroner within the county for which he is appointed, shall serve all writs and precepts when the Sheriff or either of his deputies shall be a party to the same; and shall -- return jurors de talibus circumstantibus in all causes where the sheriff of the county shall be interested or related to either party." In all other cases the sheriff or either of his deputies may make legal service of processes within his county. In the case of Brewer v. New-Gloucester, 14 Mass. 216. it is decided that each inhabitant of a town is to be considered as a party to the suit, when such town sues or is sued, within the meaning of the last mentioned section, which is a transcript of a similar law now in force in Massachusetts. It is contended by the counsel for the defendants that a stockholder in a banking institution sustains the same character in respect to the corporation, as an inhabitant of a town does to the corporation of which he is a member; and that therefore each stockholder is as much a party in a suit against the bank, as each inhabitant of a town is in a suit against such town. If this position be correct, the plea in abatement is good, and the writ must be abated.

In the case of Riddle v. The proprietors of locks, & c. on Merrimack river, 7 Mass. 169. Parsons C. J. says, " We distinguish between proper aggregate corporations, and the inhabitants of any district, who are by statute incorporated with particular powers by their consent. These, in the books, are sometimes called quasi corporations. Of this description are counties and hundreds in England, and counties, towns, & c. in this State." No private action, unless given by statute, lies against quasi corporations, for a breach of corporate duty. 2 D. & E. 667. Having no corporate fund, each inhabitant...