Shabshelowitz v. Fall River Gas Co.

• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: Before WARNER; SMITH
• Citation: Shabshelowitz v. Fall River Gas Co., 573 N.E.2d 1010, 30 Mass.App.Ct. 769 (Mass. App. 1991)
• Decision Date: 30 July 1991
• Docket Number: No. 89-P-198,89-P-198
• Parties: Andrew SHABSHELOWITZ v. FALL RIVER GAS COMPANY. 1

Page 1010

573 N.E.2d 1010

30 Mass.App.Ct. 769

Andrew SHABSHELOWITZ v. FALL RIVER GAS COMPANY. ¹

No. 89-P-198.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts Bristol.

Argued June 13, 1990.

Decided June 26, 1991.

Further AppellateReview Granted

July 30, 1991.

Sander A. Rikleen, Edwin J. Carr, with him, Boston, for defendant.

Fredric L. Ellis, Boston, for plaintiff.

Before WARNER, C.J., and SMITH and JACOBS, JJ.

SMITH, Justice.

On October 26, 1984, the plaintiff, a stockholder in the defendant company, Fall River Gas Company, commenced an action in the Superior Court, alleging that the defendant had wrongfully denied him access to its stockholders list. The complaint sought both injunctive relief and damages as a result of the defendant's failure to allow the inspection.

In December, 1986, the parties filed cross motions for summary judgment. At the suggestion of a Superior Court judge, the parties entered into a statement of agreed facts to provide a basis for a report of a question of law to this court pursuant to Mass.R.Civ.P. 64, 365 Mass. 831 (1974). ² The judge then reported the following question:

"Does plaintiff have a right to inspect and copy the Fall River Gas Company stockholders list for the purpose of identifying current stockholders whom he can contact in order to determine whether they are willing to sell their shares of Company stock to him for his own investment portfolio?"

The plaintiff claims that, as a stockholder, he has the right under G.L. c. 156B, § 32, ³ to inspect and copy the stockholders list for his stated purpose. The defendant responds that, because the plaintiff's purpose in examining the list is solely for his personal gain, he is not entitled, under the statute, to inspect and copy the stockholders list.

We summarize the agreed facts. The plaintiff has been a stockholder of the defendant since 1980. The defendant, a Massachusetts gas company within the meaning of G.L. c. 164, has only one class of stock, of which there are 296,757 shares issued and outstanding. The stock is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On September 14, 1984, the plaintiff made a formal written request that he be permitted to inspect and copy a list of all stockholders of the defendant company. According to the statement of agreed facts, "[t]he purpose of Plaintiff's request ... was to learn the identity of Company stockholders in order to determine whether there were stockholders willing to sell their Company shares to him. Plaintiff was happy with current management of the Company and ... wished to change [neither] management nor its policies.... Plaintiff has stated under oath that if he is permitted the inspection which he seeks, he will use the Company stockholders lists solely to make inquiries of Company stockholders to see if they are willing to sell their shares of Company stock to him. The Defendant[ ] [does] not contend that Plaintiff intends to sell the stockholders list...."

An answer to the reported question requires an interpretation of G.L. c. 156B, § 32. In doing so, we are guided by the principle that "[s]tatutes are to be interpreted, not alone according to their simple, literal or strict verbal meaning, but in connection with their development, their progression through the legislative body, the history of the times, [and] prior legislation...." Commonwealth v. Welosky, 276 Mass. 398, 401-402, 177 N.E. 656 (1931). See also Murphy v. Bohn, 377 Mass. 544, 547-548, 387 N.E.2d 119 (1979). Therefore, a short history of the rights of stockholders to inspect stockholders lists is in order.

At common law, stockholders had the right to inspect the books and records of their corporations if the stockholders were acting in good faith and for the purposes of advancing the corporation's interest and protecting their rights as owners. Varney v. Baker, 194 Mass. 239, 240-241, 80 N.E. 524 (1907). The right, therefore, was not absolute, and it could not be "exercised for mere curiosity, or for merely speculative purposes, or vexatiously." Id. at 241, 80 N.E. 524. There was, however, strong resistance by corporate officers to any attempts by minority stockholders to inspect the books and records. To counteract that resistance, legislatures in several States, toward the close of the Nineteenth Century, gave stockholders an unrestricted right to inspect stockholders lists and other corporate records. See Crouse v. Rogers Park Apartments, Inc., 343 Ill.App. 319, 322, 99 N.E.2d 404 (1951). In Massachusetts, the Legislature followed the trend and enacted St.1903, c. 437, § 30, which amended the predecessor to G.L. c. 155, § 22, then the only statute applicable to inspection of corporate records by a stockholder. ⁴ The amendment was interpreted by the Supreme Judicial Court as eliminating "the restrictions imposed at common law on the examination of the stock and transfer books of a domestic corporation." Shea v. Parker, 234 Mass. 592, 595, 126 N.E. 47 (1920). Consequently, as a result of the 1903 amendment to G.L. c. 155, § 22, a stockholder had an unrestricted right to inspect and copy stockholders lists, even if the stockholder's sole purpose was to use the information for his personal gain. ⁵

Apparently in response to the holding in Shea v. Parker, supra, the Legislature in 1923 again amended G.L. c. 155, § 22. See St.1923, c. 172. The amendment removed the stockholder's unlimited right to inspect stockholders lists and provided that "it shall be a defence that the actual purpose and reason for the inspection sought are to secure a list of stockholders for the purpose of selling said list or copies thereof or of using the same for a purpose other than in the interest of an applicant, as a stockholder, relative to the affairs of the corporation ..." (emphasis added). Identical language is found in G.L. c. 156B, § 32, the statute under review here. ⁶

Here, the plaintiff's sole purpose for inspecting and copying the defendant's stockholders list, as framed by the reported question, is to identify "current stockholders whom he can contact in order to determine whether they are willing to sell their shares of Company stock to him for his own investment portfolio " (emphasis added). That purpose, it is clear, was solely for the benefit of the plaintiff and is not, as required by G.L. c. 156B, § 32, "in the interest of the [plaintiff], as a stockholder, relative to the affairs of the corporation," and, in deciding the narrow issue before us, we hold that a stockholder in a company does not have the right to inspect stockholders lists where his sole purpose is to obtain information that might result in acquiring additional company stock for his investment portfolio.

We are aware that some States, under their statutes, allow such inspections for the purpose stated by the plaintiff. Those statutes, however, appear to emphasize the personal interest of the stockholder and do not contain our statutory language referring to the "interest of the applicant, as a stockholder, relative to the affairs of the corporation." ⁷ We cannot ignore any provision of a statute when we are engaged in the interpretation of a legislative enactment. See Casa Loma, Inc. v. Alcoholic Bevs. Control Commn., 377 Mass. 231, 234, 385 N.E.2d 976 (1979) ("It is a common tenet of statutory construction that, whenever possible, no provision of a legislative enactment should be treated as superfluous").

The decisions in Hanrahan v. Puget Sound Power & Light Co., 332 Mass. 586, 126 N.E.2d 499 (1955), and Donaldson v. Boston Herald-Traveler Corp., 347 Mass. 274, 197 N.E.2d 671 (1964), are not controlling. In the Hanrahan case, stockholders were interested in having the defendant corporation merge with another corporation. The stockholders sought inspection of the stockholders list in order to solicit proxies on behalf of a promerger committee and thereby attempt to elect a management which would actively seek a merger. The court stated, "With the business merits of such a merger we are not concerned; that is a question for the stockholders to determine. All that we are concerned with is whether this objective is such a purpose as to fall outside the plaintiffs' interest 'as a stockholder, relative to the affairs of the corporation.' Plainly a change in the management and policy of the corporation affects the plaintiffs' rights as stockholders and is certainly relative to the affairs of the corporation." 332 Mass. at 592, 126 N.E.2d 499. Because the purpose in that case was "relative to the affairs of the corporation," inspection was permitted. In the Donaldson case, the plaintiff, a stockholder in the defendant corporation, made a request to inspect the defendant's stockholders list to solicit proxies "in order to obtain a measure of control" of the company. 347 Mass. at 280, 197 N.E.2d 671. The court held that "[t]he solicitation of proxies in order to try to change management is a...