Melville Fuller

“ Where the charter of a bank imposes on all of its stockholders personal liability to its creditors, such liability attaches as well to those who acquire a complete legal title to stock of the bank by having the same transferred to them as collateral security for debts due by the transferrers, as to those who purchase such stock outright. ”

“ The charter of the Brunswick bank was granted in 1889, at which time § 1496 had been in force for many years, and its application could only extend to the liability imposed by the charter,-namely, liability for indebtedness created while the relation of stockholder existed. The words 'at the time the debt was created,' must be held to have been providently inserted as words of limitation, and cannot be rejected nor rendered inefficacious by the prior law, which only applied to the actual situation, and did not control it nor purport to do so. ”

“ In view of the radical change thus made in the law, the difference of opinion which exists between the majority and the minority of the court as constituted for the hearing of the cases now in hand is, apparently, of but little practical importance, save as affecting the result of the present litigation. If another case should arise the decision of which would depend upon the question as to which we disagree, the whole matter would still be open to review by a bench of six justices. ”