Foster v. Chase

• Decision Date: 22 August 1896
• Citation: Foster v. Chase, 75 F. 797 (D. Vt. 1896)
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Vermont
• Parties: FOSTER v. CHASE et al.

75 F. 797

FOSTER v. CHASE et al.

United States Circuit Court, D. Vermont.

August 22, 1896

W. L Burnap, for plaintiff.

W. P Stafford, for defendants.

WHEELER District Judge.

The defendant bought stock in the names of his minor children in the First National Bank of Silver City, N.M., of which the plaintiff is receiver, and this suit is brought for an assessment upon it made by the comptroller of the currency. The plaintiff claims that the defendant made himself liable for the assessment because of the incapacity of his children to take the stock and make themselves liable for it. He insists that they only are the shareholders, and liable, if any one is. Assent is necessary to becoming a shareholder subject to this liability, in a national bank. Keyser v Hitz, 133 U.S. 138, 10 Sup.Ct. 290. Minors do not seem to have anywhere the necessary legal capacity for that. The principles upon which this disability rests are elementary and universal. 1 Bl.Comm. 492; 2 Kent, Comm. 233. In buying and paying for this stock, and having it placed on the books of the bank, the defendant acted for himself; in having it placed there in the names of his children, as with their assent, he assumed to act for them. As they could not themselves so assent as to be bound to the liabilities of a shareholder, they could not so authorize him to assent for them as to bind them. To the extent that they could not be bound he acted without legal...