Bailey v. Gunning

• Decision Date: 30 March 1900
• Citation: 56 S.W. 286,155 Mo. 682
• Parties: BAILEY v. GUNNING et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

56 S.W. 286

155 Mo. 682

BAILEY v. GUNNING et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

March 30, 1900.

APPEAL AND ERROR—VERDICT—EVIDENCE— REVIEW.

Where there is any evidence to sustain a finding by the trial court, it will not, on appeal, be reweighed.

Appeal from St. Louis circuit court; H. D. Wood, Judge.

Action by Charles H. Bailey against R. J. Gunning and others. From a judgment in favor of defendants, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

A. C. & H. B. Davis and Chester H. Krum, for appellant. Alexander Young, for respondents.

VALLIANT, J.

This is an action at law for damages for wrecking a corporation. The petition states, in effect, that the Cottrill Bill-posting Company was a corporation whose capital stock was divided in 1,000 shares, of the par value of $50 each, whereof plaintiff held 100 shares; that, for 10 years or more previous to the date at which the defendants came into control of it, the corporation did a very lucrative business, paid from 16 to 18 per cent. dividends, and the plaintiff's stock was worth $10,000, but that in 1893 defendant Gunning organized another corporation, called the St. Louis Billposting Company, and afterwards bought up substantially all the stock of the Cottrill Company, except that owned by plaintiff, and then caused his co-defendants to be elected the board of directors and officers of that company, and they, under his direction, diverted all the patronage and profitable business of that company into the hands of the new company, and thereby caused the complete wreck and ruin of the Cottrill concern, and destruction of the value of the plaintiff's stock; that, the corporation being in the hands of the defendants, plaintiff cannot obtain a suit to be brought in the name of the corporation against them, and therefore he has a right to sue in his own name, as stockholder. The petition sets out in detail a history of transactions whereby the destruction of the corporation is alleged to have been effected, which it will be unnecessary for us to repeat here. The answer was a general denial. Upon the trial a jury was waived, and the cause was submitted to the court upon the pleadings and proof. Testimony was introduced both for the plaintiff and for the defendants, and at the conclusion of all the evidence the court, at the request of the defendants, gave a declaration to the effect that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover; and there was a finding and judgment for the defendants, from which the...