Monongahela Bridge Co. v. Pittsburg & Birmingham Traction Co.

Citations

• 196 Pa. 25
• 46 A. 99
• 1900 Pa. LEXIS 464

Syllabus

<p>Corporation — Capital stock — Corporate property.</p> <p>A corporation is an entity, an existence, irrespective of the persons who own all its stock; and the fact that one person owns all the stock does not make him and the corporation one and the same person.</p> <p>The shares of the capital stock of a corporation are essentially distinct and different from the corporate property, and the owner of all the stock of a corporation does not own the corporate property or become entitled to manage or control it.</p> <p>Corporation — Collateral attack on charter.</p> <p>■ The existence of a corporation or its right to exercise its corporate franchises cannot be inquired into or attacked collaterally.</p> <p>In an action of assumpsit by a bridge company against a street railway company to enforce the covenants of a written agreement, the defendant cannot set up as a defense the fact that a city had purchased the entire stock of the plaintiff and had continued the corporate existence of ‘the bridge company, without authority in law.</p> <p>Corporations — Pleadings—Admission of corporate existence — Act of June 24,-1885, P. L. 149.</p> <p>In an action of assumpsit where the statement avers that the plaintiff is a “ corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of the state of Pennsylvania,” and there is no denial of this averment in the pleadings, the defendant will- be prevented by the provisions of the act of June 24, 1885, from alleging at the trial, that the corporation had been dissolved by the fact that a city had purchased its entire capital stock.</p>