William R. Day

“ There is nothing in the banking act, as we read it, which limits a shareholder or shareholders, seeking knowledge for a lawful purpose of an institution in which they have a proprietary interest, to an application to the Comptroller for an examination by a public officer of the affairs of their company. A director need only own 10 shares of the stock. ”

“ To say that they have the right, but that it can be enforced only when they have ascertained, in some way without the books, that their affairs have been mismanaged, or that their interests are in danger, is practically to deny the right in the majority of cases. ”

“ The directors together need not necessarily own the controlling interest in the bank. Yet it is contended they, or the officers of their choice, may deny stockholders the privilege of inspecting, for legitimate purposes, the property which belongs to them. ”

“ Hughes, 6 Fed. 737, and of the meaning of the term 'visitorial powers,' as used in § 5241, that learned judge said:
'Visitation, in law, is the act of a superior or superintending officer, who visits a corporation to examine into its manner to conducting business, and enforce an observance of its laws and regulations. Burrill defines the word to mean 'inspection; superintendence; direction; regulation."
At common law the right of visitation was exercised by the King as to civil corporations, and as to eleemosynary ones, by the founder or donor. ”

“ The subject appears to be now regulated by statute in England. Cook, Corp. § 518. In Cockburn v. Union Bank, 13 La. Ann. 289, it was held that a stockholder in the Union Bank of Louisiana had the right to a writ of mandamus to compel the officers of the bank to allow him the privilege of inspecting the discount books of the bank within proper and reasonable hours, and in the course of the opinion it was said:
'A stockholder in a corporation possesses all his individual rights, except so far as he is deprived of them by the charter or the law of the land ”