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THE Commercial Loan and Trust Company of Chicago has suspended. It was at first confidently asserted that the company would pay every depositor in full, but later information is to the effect that depositors cannot expect over 80 cents on the dollar. The company did a large savings deposit business, and its suspension falls heavily on some poor people.
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# THE COMMERCIAL LOAN. LIABILITY OF STOCKHOLDERS DETERMINED. Amid the crash of the Savings, the Merchants', Farmers' & Mechantes, and the Fidelity, the affairs of the defunct Commercial Loan & Trust Company have been completely forgotten by the public. Its efficient Receiver, J. D. Harvey, and persevering attorney, Gen. G. W. Smith, have not forgotten it, and yesterday Gen. Smith was winner in a chancery suit which promises to bring more assets to the depositors. The bank was organized in 1859 under a special charter, which provided among other things that "The stockholders in this corporation shall be holden to the creditors thereof for the amount of the capital stock each shall hold in the same." The bank made an assignment to Mr. Harvey in December, 1875, for the benefit of all its creditors ratably. Three dividends have since been declared of 56¼ per cent in all, nod the bank has been successful in an important suit in which George F. Harding was defendant, from the proceeds of which, about $24,000,-together with moneys which the Assignee will realize froin other sources, a further dividend of 13 per cent will be paid in October. This will leave the bank or the Assignee with a considerable amount of incumbered real estate and some few first mortrages. There will still be a deficit, however, of 15 or 20 per cent on the whole indebtedness of about $4:10,000. The Assignee and creditors, deeming the stockholders liable under the above-mentioned section, In 1876 took steps to enforce that liability, and a bill was filed in the Superior Court for that purpose. When it was brought to the attention of Judge Moore, however, he declined to hear it, because of his interest in the question in connection with some other bank. The case was therefore transferred to the Circuit Court, and came up a week ago ou the deinurrer to the bill, before Judge Williams. He, too, being interested, declined to hear the case, and it was transferred to Judge McAllister. Yesterday the case was argued before Judre McAllister on the demurrers to the bill, and they were overruled. The bill was filed by the Assignee and Henry Lamperter, one of the creditors of the bank, on behalf of himself and all other creditors. The bank and all the stockholders from Jan. 1, 1873, down to the date of the assignment were made defendants. The bill set out that the estate of the bank was not sufficient to pay its debts, and asked that the unsold portion of such estate might be scheduled, and its value ascertained; that the liability of each stockholder for the debts contracted by the corporation, and still existing, during the time he was such stockholder, might be ascertained and marshaled, and that the stockholders might be compelled to pay to the Assignee, or to some person to be appointed by the Court, the amount for which he should be found liable, and that the funds so derived should be distributed ratably among the classes of creditors who should be entitled to the same. THE OPPOSITION TO THE BILL was based principally upon the ground, first, that there was no liability under the charter; second, that a suit at law by each creditor against such stockholder as he should select was the proper way of enforcing the liability, if such existed, and that a sult in equity would not lie; third, that, even it a suit in equity would lie, it would not lis either on behalf of all creditors of the bank or against all the stockholders,-in other words, that there could be no combination by which all the interests could bo brought together and determined in one suit. The Court overruled the demurrers and held that the Assignee was the proper party, because his attitude to the sult was in the nature of a trustee to the estate, and the amount derived from the stockholders would operate to determine the amount which should be paid by him from the estate to creditors. For example, If any one class of creditors should, by reason of being able to enforce their claims against a solvent stockholder, be able to collect a large share of the remaining portion of their debt, they would not be entitled to share ratably with the other creditors in the distribution of the estate by the Assignee. That is, that the Assigned was entitled to go into a court of equity to ask directions concerning the distribution of the estate, and that the Court had power to direct him so to distributo as to do equity to all concerned. The Court also held that in order to avoid a multiplicity of suits, it was proper that one creditor out of the 4,000 should bring a suit on behalt of all, and that with respect to bringing an action at law, it was long time a matter of doubt whether the sole remedy was not in equity, and it is only of late years that the jurisdiction of courts of law has been sustained in suits against stockholders. As the law how stands, however, a court of equity had jurisdiction concurrently with a court of law, and in the case in question the Court held that it was the more proper and convontent form. The objection to the bill on account of its being multifarious was held not to be valid. It was further held tinat upon a decree the court might enforce the liability of the respective stockholders, although the amounts which they should pay, and the class of creditors to whom the moneys should go, might differ. The effect of this decision is to sustain the position of the creditors and the Assignee, both with respect to the liability of the stockholders and with respect to the mode of proceeding for enforcing that liability. It will also serve, perhape, na u precedent by which the liability of the stockholders in the other broken banks will be determined.