Anderson v. Byrnes

Citations

• 122 Cal. 272
• 54 P. 821
• 1898 Cal. LEXIS 570

Syllabus

<p>Minino Corporations—Liability of Directobs to Stockholder—Ace of 1880—Penal Statute.—The act of April 23, 1880, authorizing a stockholder of a domestic mining corporation to recover from its directors one thousand dollars as liquidated damages for their failure to comply with its provisions, is a penal statute, which prescribes a determinate penalty for neglect of the duty imposed by law upon the directors; and compensation for the actual damage done to the stockholder was not intended to be given by that act.</p> <p>IP.—Amendment of 1897—Independent Provision—Actual Damage— Loss of Penalty.—The amendatory act of 1897. regardless of any question as to the constitutionality of the provision limiting the scope and effect of the act to mining corporations “whose stock is listed and offered for sale at public exchange,” is operative as to the independent provision limiting the liability of the directors to the stockholder to the actual damage sustained by him from their neglect of imposed duty, and has so entirely changed the remedy of the stockholder as to preclude the enforcement of any penalty for a previous violation of the original act.</p> <p>Id.—Vested Right—Repeal of Penalty Shed for.—No person has a vested right to an unenforced penalty; and the repeal of the statute giving a right to recover a penalty, before it is enforced, destroys the right, and prevents any further prosecution of litigation pending for its enforcement.</p> <p>Ld.—Unenforced Judgment—Change of Law—Pending Appeal— Reversal.—An unenforced judgment in favor of a stockholder for the recovery of the penalty of one thousand dollars from the directors of a mining corporation, under the act of 1880. from which an appeal was pending at the time of the passage of the amendatory act of 1897, must be reversed, by reason of the destruction of the right to enforce the penalty.</p>