Boston Towboat Co. v. Medford Nat. Bank

• Decision Date: 27 November 1917
• Citation: 228 Mass. 484,117 N.E. 928
• Parties: BOSTON TOWBOAT CO. v. MEDFORD NAT. BANK et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

228 Mass. 484

117 N.E. 928

BOSTON TOWBOAT CO.

v.MEDFORD NAT. BANK et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Nov. 27, 1917.

Case Reserved from Supreme Judicial Court, Suffolk County.

Suit by the Boston Towboat Company against the Medford National Bank and others. Case reserved for the consideration of the full court. Reservation discharged, and decree conditionally ordered to be entered dismissing the bill; the case otherwise to stand for further hearing before the single justice.

Gaston, Snow & Saltonstall, of Boston (Thos. Hunt, of Boston, of counsel), for plaintiff.

Eaton & McKnight and Jas. E. McConnell, all of Boston, for respondent.

RUGG, C. J.

This is a suit in equity brought to recover an obligation claimed to be due from the defendant to the plaintiff. The Boston Towboat Company, named as plaintiff, was a Massachusetts corporation. It was dissolved by St. 1913, c. 277. Section 2 of that statute provides for the continuance of certain suits to which the corporation was a party, but does not include the class to which the present suit belongs. It is provided by St. 1903, c. 437, § 52, subject to the terms of which the Boston Towboat Company was dissolved, that it shall ‘be continued as a body corporate for three years after the time when it would have been so dissolved, for the purpose of prosecuting and defending suits by or against it.’ The statute dissolving the corporation took effect on March 12, 1913. The existence of the corporation for purposes of prosecuting or defending litigation under the last-cited section therefore came to an end on March 12, 1916, being three years from the date of the dissolution of the corporation for general purposes. The corporation having thus ceased to exist even for purposes of litigation, no judgment can be rendered in favor of or against it. Thornton v. Marginal Freight Ry., 123 Mass. 32;National Bank v. Colby, 21 Wall. 609, 615, 22 L. Ed. 687;Maine Shore Line R. R. v. Maine Central R. R., 92 Me. 476, 43 Atl. 113;Bank of Mississippi v. Wrenn, 3 Smedes & M. (Miss.) 791.

Counsel who brought the suit for the plaintiff have requested leave to show that the claim here in suit was assigned by the Boston Towboat Company to persons now in being before its dissolution, and to take such action by way of amendment, substitution of another plaintiff, petition for a receiver, or otherwise, as may be necessary to effect substantial justice. But in behalf of the defendant it has been...