Jones v. Woodin

Headnote

Jones v. Woodin, 171 App. Div. 952 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered January 4, 1916, affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a verdict. The action was brought. to recover damages for the conversion of an undetermined number of shares of the common stock of the defendant Standard Plunger Elevator Company, the complaint alleging that on or about the 21st day of April, 1906,' plaintiff surrendered and delivered to defendants Woodin and Hoyt a certain voting trust certificate, upon which surrender and delivery he was entitled to receive the stock in question, but that the defendants appropriated to their own use the said voting trust certificate and the stock represented thereby and refused to deliver to the plaintiff or his nominee any part of said property though often requested so to do, The answers of the defendants set forth that according to the terms of the voting trust agreement under which plaintiff’s certificate had been issued, the interest represented by each trust certificate was assignable only by transfer upon the books of the trustees by the registered holder thereof on the surrender of the certificate properly assigned; that plaintiff’s trust certificate was never assigned in accordance with these provisions and was never delivered or surrendered to defendants, but that it continued to stand in the name of his wife; and that the defendants had always been ready and able and willing to deliver to plaintiff in exchange for his trust certificate duly indorsed his proportionate share of the common stock of the Standard Plunger Elevator Company.