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Sue Stockholders Where They Live Is Court Ruling
Minnesota Bank Receiver Can't Combine Action in Hartford County
Suits brought by Ervin J. Friede, receiver-trustee for the creditors of the closed Southern Minnesota Joint Stock Land Bank of Minneapolis, against Connecticut stockholders of the bank, must be filed in the counties where the defendants reside, it was held Wednesday by Judge Earnest C. Simpson of the Superior Court.
About 50 actions have been filed in Hartford County and several of the defendants, living in other counties, pleaded to the jurisdiction, to which Wells, Davis, Schaefer & Locke, counsel for the receiver-trustee, filed a demurrer. Judge Simpson overruled the demurrer, which will result in suits being brought against defendants in Fairfield, New London and New Haven Counties.
The bank went into receivership May 2, 1932. On April 20, 1935, under a federal law, assessments were levied against the stockholders to the extent of the par value of the stock held by them. Hartford County residents named in the action and the amounts claimed from them follow: John F. Forward, $2500; John C. Franfield, $600; Mary R. Frisbie, $1000; Robert T. Hurley, $200; Cleveland Litchfield, $300; Charles C. Russ, $1000; Horace C. Swan, $600, all of Hartford; Mrs. Emorette H. Case, West Hartford, $5500; Martha B. Horton, Unionville, $600; Harold C. Rossberg Willes, $500; Alice T. Rossberg, $1500, Dorothy L. Sengle, $2700, all of New Britain; Esther Porter Pratt, Wethersfield, $1000; Herbert B. House, Manchester, executor under the will of Charles E. House, $2500; Clarence A. Mason, executor under the will of Gertrude W. Mason, Farmington, $200; Hartford National Bank & Trust Co., executor under the will of Lilla M. Burt, $2000. The suits were authorized by the United States District Court of Minnesota.