Marks v. Evans

Citations

• 6 Cal. Unrep. 505
• 62 P. 76
• 1900 Cal. LEXIS 1124

Syllabus

<p>Limitation of Actions—Fraud—Corporate Transactions.—Code of Civil Procedure, section. 338, provides that actions for relief on the ground of fraud must he commenced within three years after discovery thereof. A complaint in a suit commenced in 1898 alleged that a corporation’s directors conspired to defraud plaintiff, and accordingly sold him considerable capital stock; that in 1888 they levied an assessment on the stock without necessity, and sold his stock in payment thereof; that in 1889 plaintiff commenced an action to set aside the assessment and sale thereunder, which suit was afterward compromised. Held, that the action was barred, since eight years had expired since the fraud was discovered.</p> <p>Limitation of Actions—Fraud—Corporate Transactions.—The Fact That a Complainant in a suit against a corporation’s directors for fraudulently selling capital stock alleged that the directors afterward appropriated the corporation’s property did not prevent the statute of limitations from running from the time that the sale was discovered, since the sale was the gravamen of the action.</p> <p>Limitation of Actions—Fraud—Corporate Transactions.—Where Plaintiff Knew that a corporation’s directors had fraudulently assessed his stock, and sold the same under the assessment, his failure to discover other frauds perpetrated by them, without seeking to inspect the corporation’s books, did not delay the running of limitations, since he would be presumed to know all that reasonable diligence would have disclosed to Mm.1</p>