California Fruit Growers' Ass'n v. Superior Court

THE COURT.

This is an application for a writ to restrain the court and its receiver from selling certain personal

[712]

property belonging to said Fruit Growers’ Association. The petition for the writ sets out all of the proceedings connected with the original appointment of the receiver, from which it appears that the association is a corporation organized under law, governed by a board of five directors; that these directors had all been guilty of fraudulent practices, and the majority of the board was then confined in jail, and each and all of the directors had abandoned the corporation' and its assets and interests; that all of the stock other than that owned by the plaintiffs in that proceeding was fraudulently issued, but was outstanding, and certain of the directors •claimed to own and hold the same.

The special and general prayer of the complaint comprehends the removal of the directors, and if the court finds the stock fraudulently issued to cancel the same, and for the appointment of a receiver pending the action to preserve the property of the corporation. The court had jurisdiction to appoint a receiver under the allegations of the complaint. The proceeding was not directed toward closing up the affairs of the corporation, or an attempt to dissolve the same, but merely a proceeding directed against the individual directors, whom it sought to remove, and to place the assets of the corporation in safe hands. That a court of equity may remove directors of a corporation if deemed necessary when they have proven unfaithful is determined in

Wickersham

v.

Crittenden,

93 Cal. 32, [28 Pac. 788]. Such an order appointing a receiver is an appealable order, and which right of appeal confers an adequate remedy, and prohibition will not lie, even where jurisdiction does not exist.

(Jacobs

v.

Superior Court,

133 Cal. 364, [85 Am. St. Rep. 204, 65 Pac. 826].)