io6
THE GREEN BAG
taken as not inconsistent with the constitution of the company. All the English authorities were consistent with this view. He distinguished Bank of Australia z>. Harding (9 C.B. 66 1 ); Bank, etc. v. Nias (16 Q.B. 717), Copin v. Adamson (L.R. 9 Ex. 345) and Pinney v. Nelson (183 U.S. 144) which were relied upon by the plaintiffs. The extraordinary provisions of the California statute can hardly have extra-territorial effect; nor is joining such a company a submission by the member to the local laws of every state in which it has power to act. Pinney v. Nelson is confined to the case where the corporation is expressly formed to do business in California. Even if we could suppose that the law of California had power to impose a liability on the defendant, such a liability would hardly be enforced in another juris diction. Mandell v. Fogg, 182 Mass. 582. J. H. B. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Corporations — Amendment of Charter — Insurance.) N. Y. S. C. Sp. Term. — The legal aspect of the controversy as to the control of the Equitable Life Assurance Society is presented in Lord v. Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, 94 N. Y. S. 65. A statement of some of the facts relative to the organization of the corporation is necessary to a correct understanding of the holding of para mount importance in this case. The company was organized under New York Laws, 1853, p. 887, c. 463, authorizing companies formed thereunder to provide by charter the mode of exercising their corporate powers in the manner of electing direc tors and officers, and the time of their election. Its charter provided that the shares of its capital stock should be personal property; that the hold ers might receive a semiannual dividend not to exceed 3} per cent; that the earnings and re ceipts of the company should be cumulated; that the corporate powers should be vested in a board of S2 directors, and should be exercised by them and such officers and agents as they might appoint and empower; that they should elect annually from among their number a president; that each member of the board should be the proprietor of at least five shares of stock; that the number might be reduced by its action to at least 24; that directors should be elected by ballot, a plurality of votes electing; that every stockholder should be entitled to one vote for every share of stock held by him, and that the vote might be given in person or by proxy; that the board, after giving notice at the two previous meetings, might, by a vote of three-fourths of all the directors, provide that each life policy-holder who should be insured for not less than $5,000, should be entitled to one
vote, but that such vote should be given person ally and not by proxy; that the business should be conducted on the "mutual plan"; and that each policy-holder should be credited with an equitable share of the net surplus after its ascer tainment by the officers. The company's busi ness resulted in the accumulation of a surplus. In this situation it is held that a proposed amend ment of the charter providing that the Board of Directors might be diminished to 28; that the directors, each of whom should be a policy-holder or a proprietor of at least five shares of the capital stock, should be chosen by ballot by the stock holders and the policy-holders, six vacancies occurring annually to be filled by a plurality vote of the stockholders, and the other seven to be filled by a plurality vote of the policy-holders, each policy-holder having been such for twelve months prior to the election, being entitled to one vote, which might be given in person or proxy; was as to stockholders objecting and whcclaim an interest in the .surplus, repugnant to the Federal and State constitutional provisions for bidding the deprivation of property without due process of law. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Due Process of Law — Imprisonment of Insane Defendant after Acquittal.) U. S. C. C. for W. D. of Wash. - A holding as to the validity of a statute of the State of Washington, which is of more than local in terest, because of more or less similar statutes in other states, is contained in the case of Brown tr. lirquhart, 139 Fed. Rep. 846. The Washington statute (2 Ballinger's Ann. Codes ot St., § 6059) r provides that where a person tried for crime shall be acquitted by reason of insanity, the jury in their verdict shall state that it was given for such cause, and that thereupon, if the discharge of such insane person shall be considered by thecourt manifestly dangerous to the peace and safety of the community, the court may order him to be committed to prison. This statute is held to be constitutional and valid when con strued in harmony with the general provisions of the Criminal Code, which require a conviction in Orderly proceedings, and after a fair trial, prior to the rendition of the judgment under which a. person may be imprisoned. It is, however, held that it does not authorize the judge of a trial court to commit a defendant to jail after a verdict of acquittal on the ground of insanity without * new arraignment upon a formal complaint and the opportunity to defend; and an imprisonment on an order so made, based entirely on the ver dict of acquittal and proceedings in the criminal case, is without due process of law. and in viola
