Stephen Johnson Field

“ Unfortunately, litigation against large companies is often instituted by individual stockholders from no higher motive. But assuming that the complainants were the owners of the shares held by them when the transactions of which they complain took place, it does not appear that they made any attempt to prevent the purchase of the additional road, and the issue by the company of its bonds secured by a mortgage on that road. ”

“ A stockholder must make a better showing of wrongs which he has suffered, and also of efforts to obtain relief against them, before a court of equity will interfere and set aside the transactions of a railway company or of its directors. ”

“ Grievances, real and substantial, must exist, and before an individual stockholder can be heard he must show, in the language of this court, that 'he has exhausted all the means within his reach to obtain, within the corporation itself, the redress of his grievances or action in conformity to his wishes.' Hawes v. ”