Hollister v. McCamey

The single question in this case is whether the shareholders in the Hollister Oil Company, including plaintiffs in error, became liable for a debt incurred under a drilling contract between defendant in error and the Hollister Oil Company.

Under an agreed statement of facts, the liability of the shareholders was made to depend on whether, as a matter of law, a certain writing, copied on pages 691 to 694 in Volume 241 of the Southwestern Reporter, under which the Oil Company was doing business, created a joint stock company or a common law trust, and, if it created the former, whether it made…