Souris River Telephone Mutual Aid Corp. v. Atkinson

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge.

We here consider whether two REA-financed cooperatives, operating under bylaw policies of general application, may decline to refund patronage capital credited to the estate of a bankrupt and defunct corporation when it would refund such capital to the estate of an individual patron should he die. In the context of an adjudication in bankruptcy, the Referee, Gordon M. Thompson, and the district court on review, Judge VanSickle, held the patronage capital refundable to the corporation because the circumstances of its bankruptcy amounted to “de facto” death. The…