Inspection of Stock Ledgers and Voting Lists
Frank Newman · Southwestern law journal · 1962
These proxies may well represent shares which are several times in number the shares represented by the stockholders present in person.A good example is the Chrysler Corporation's 1961 annual stockholders' meeting.The Wall Street Journal, April 19, 1961, p. 24, col. 1, had the following to say about the meeting: Chrysler Corp.'s management was re-elected at the annual meeting, as expected, but not before it heard more than two hours of denunciation by angry stockholders.More than 30 stockholders spoke at the meeting, which lasted nearly four hours.Only a handful had anything good to say about management in general, and L. L. Colbert, chairman and president, in particular.Time after time calls from the floor for Mr. Colbert's resignation were greeted by cheers and applause from the crowd which numbered about 800.The meeting was held at the concern's training center in the Detroit suburb of Center Line.Stockholders overflowed the 500-seat auditorium and filled the adjoining 300-seat cafeteria.Stockholders knew before they started talking that their comments would have little effect on the election.Mr. Colbert announced when the meeting opened that management held proxies for 7,046,288 of the auto maker's 8,915,005 shares outstanding.2See Annot., 15 A.L.R.2d 11 (1951).But cf.State ex rel.Paschall v. Scott, 41 Wash.2d 71, 247 P.2d 543 (1952), where a director was denied inspection because his purpose was hostile to the corporation's interests, and Fulle v. White Metal Mfg.Co., 13 N.J.Misc.591, 180 Atl.231 (Sup.Ct. 1935), where a former director-officer was denied access to the books because his purpose was to be reinstated as an employee or to have his stock interest liquidated at a high price.aSee Ark. Stat.S 64-219 (1957); Fla. Stat.§ 608.39 (1956); Nev.Rev. Stat.§ 78.105