Symmes v. Sierra Nevada Mining Co.

HENSHAW, J.

Defendant is a mining corporation organized under the laws of the state of California and having its principal place of business within this state. Plaintiff is a stockholder of defendant corporation, which is conducting mining operations for gold, silver, and other precious metals on its properties in Storey County, Nevada. Plaintiff pleaded these matters and further pleaded his desire to inspect and examine the mining properties, his application to the president for written permission so to do, the written instructions of the president to the superintendent in charge of the mine, all in compliance with the law. (Civ. Code, secs. 588, 589.) Further plaintiff pleaded the superintendent’s expressed desire to comply with the president’s letter of instruction and an agreement as to the day when plaintiff was to be allowed to examine the mine. He began his examination under the guidance of James Meehan, foreman of the mine, delegated to the performance of this duty by the superintendent. The foreman, declaring that he was acting-under instructions from his superintendent, refused to allow plaintiff to take any samples of the ore or ore bodies of the mine. Plaintiff pleaded that these samples were a necessary part of his proposed examination, and that it was impossible to make a full and complete .examination without taking such samples. Basing his demand for judgment upon this asserted refusal of the superintendent to comply with the law, he asks a monetary judgment in the sum of one thousand dollars, a further judgment compelling the officers of the

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corporation to discharge the superintendent, and finally an injunctive judgment forbidding the corporation from ever thereafter employing the superintendent and from paying him any salary after the twenty-ninth day of April—the date of the breach of the statutory duty.

A general demurrer to this complaint was interposed and sustained. Plaintiff declining to amend appeals from the judgment which followed. The governing law has received consideration from this court in

Eyre

v.

Harmon,

92 Cal. 580, [28 Pac. 779], and very recently in