to assessment under Section 5151, R. S. That liability, under varying circumstances, has been defined by the statute and settled by the courts. The question, as we view it, was one of evidence, or rather, of the sufficiency of evidence to bring the defendant as a shareholder within or to excuse her from the liability imposed by law.

[1] Section 5151, U. S. R. S., provides, that shareholders of a national bank shall be individually and ratably responsible for all debts and engagements of the bank to the extent of the amount of their stock therein at the par value thereof, in addition to the amount invested in such shares. This is generally known as the "double liability" act. As to its effect upon a record holder of stock, the Supreme Court has said (Matteson v. Dent, 176 U. S. 521, 20 Sup. Ct. 419, 44 L. Ed. 571):

"But the settled doctrine is that, as a general rule, the legal owner of stock of a national bank association-that is, the one in whose name stock stands on the books of the association-remains liable" to the association "so long as the stock is allowed to stand in his name on the books, and consequently, that although the registered owner may have made a transfer to another person, unless it has been accompanied by a transfer on the books of registry of the association, such registered owner remains liable."

[2] When, therefore, a person becomes a record shareholder with full knowledge of the fact, he continues such (notwithstanding he may have disposed of his shares) until by his act he removes his name from the record. But it has developed in the cases that persons have become and have for a time continued record shareholders without knowledge of that fact. With respect to the liability of such the Supreme Court has expressed itself. In Keyser v. Hitz, 133 U. S. 138, 10 Sup. Ct. 290, 33 L. Ed. 531, the court, speaking with reference to the facts of that case, said:

"It is true, as already suggested, there was evidence tending to show that the transfers of stock were made originally without defendant's knowledge, and the jury might reasonably have concluded, under all the evidence, that the transfers were made, and caused to be made, by her husband. * The vital question remained whether the defendant became the owner of the stock within the meaning of the statute regulating the individual liability of the shareholders of national banking associations.

*

"If she became aware of the transfers, after they were made, and thereafter received the dividends, she became a shareholder for all purposes of individual liability in respect to the contracts, debts and engagements of the bank, as fully as if the transfers had been made originally with her knowledge and consent.

"We must not be understood as saying that the mere transfer of the stocks n the books of the bank to the name of the defendant imposed upon her the individual liability attached by law to the position of shareholder in a national banking association. If the transfers were, in fact, without her knowledge or consent, and she was not informed of what was so done nothing more appearing, she would not be held to have assumed or incurred liability for the debts, contracts and engagements of the bank. But if, after the transfers she joined in the application to convert the savings bank into a national bank, or in any other mode approved, ratified or acquiesced in such transfers, or ac cepted any of the benefits arising from the ownership of the stock thus put in her name on the books of the bank, she was liable to be treated as a shareholder, with such responsibility as the law imposes upon the shareholders of national banks."

The test of liability therefore seems to be the fact of being a record shareholder, knowledge of that fact, and some act in approval or ratification of it. Along this line the cases have been tried.

In Kenyon v. Fowler, 155 Fed. 107, 83 C. C. A. 567, affirmed 215 U. S. 593, 30 Sup. Ct. 409, 54 L. Ed. 341, the case turned on the defendant's admitted knowledge, that by an unauthorized act stock had been placed in his name for the ostensible purpose of holding him out as a stockholder, and on the inference of his acquiescence therein because of his failure to disapprove or repudiate the act.

In Keyser v. Hitz, 133 U. S. 138, 10 Sup. Ct. 290, 33 L. Ed. 531, stock had been placed in the name of the defendant without her knowledge, but knowledge thereafter was imputed to her by her acts in joining in an application to convert the savings bank into a national bank, and by accepting cheques for dividends on the stock drawn to her order and by her endorsed. Having accepted benefits arising from her stock ownership she was estopped to deny her liability. National Bank v. Case, 99 U. S. 628, 632, 25 L. Ed. 448; Pauly v. State Loan & Trust Co., 165 U. S. 606, 612, 17 Sup. Ct. 465, 41 L. Ed. 844.

In Finn v. Brown, 142 U. S. 56, 57, 12 Sup. Ct. 136, 35 L. Ed. 936, the person in whose name stock was entered on the books, was a director of the bank and acting cashier. To become the former he had to be a stockholder, and had to make an affidavit that he was a stockholder; while as a part of his duties in the latter position, he kept the stock ledger. He was therefore conclusively presumed to have known that he was a stockholder.

The law of ratification which we think applies to the case in hand, is that stated by the Court of Appeals of New York in Glenn v. Grath, 133 N. Y. 38, 31 N. E. 344, as follows:

"It (a ratification) implies a conscious and intended approval of the act done. It rests upon the actual and existing purpose to make such approval. Hence, the courts say, that it must occur with full knowledge of all the facts."

Referring to the principle of estoppel, the court said:

"That question is not reached, because before it can be reached there must be shown to exist some act of the party, done by him or with his assent, creat ing the alleged apparent relation. That fact must be established before any question of estoppel can arise. If the act done, the false appearance created. is the act, not of the party, but of some third person, such party is in no manner bound or affected by it unless he either originally authorized it or subse

quently ratified it."

And again the court said:

"Where the shareholder consciously accepts that relation. he ought to bear its burdens as well as enjoy its benefits, and it is easy to imply a promise to perform that duty. But where he does not accept the relation, where it was put upon him by another without authority and against his will. where, instead of accepting its benefits, he repudiates them at serious loss, where his mind and that of the company never met in any contractual relation, where it was not his duty to pay, and he explicitly refused to take what was offered, all foundation for an implied promise is gone. The facts do not admit of it, for the law does not raise a fiction to accomplish a wrong. And thus again we come to the proposition that the real truth must be ascertained, and when ascertained must control. And that real truth is that the defendants repudiated and did not ratify the unauthorized act of McKim. The whole force of a

ratification lies in conscious and intended assent with full knowledge of the facts. If there is no such intent and no such volition, but a contrary intent and an opposite purpose, there is no ratification. The absence of any such intent and the presence of a different one is clearly disclosed by the facts."

This being the law, the question in this case, as we have said, becomes one of evidence: Has the plaintiff established the defendant's liability by sufficient testimony? Or has the defendant overcome the plaintiff's case by evidence sufficient to establish her non-liability?

[3,4] The plaintiff proved that the defendant was a shareholder of record and that she did nothing to remove her name as such. This was sufficient to establish prima facie the defendant's liability. Finn v. Brown, 142 U. S. 56, 57, 12 Sup. Ct. 136, 35 L. Ed. 936; Matteson v. Dent, 176 U. S. 521, 530, 20 Sup. Ct. 419, 44 L. Ed. 571. The burden then shifted to her (Finn v. Brown, supra) to show that the act of making her a shareholder was in the first instance unauthorized; that it was without her knowledge or consent; and that she has not since acquiesced in or ratified it. That she has sustained the burden upon the first two points is not disputed; therefore the remaining question is as to evidence of her ratification.

[5] Evidence of the defendant's ratification is restricted to her two acts, first, of endorsing a dividend cheque and receiving the dividend; and, second, of endorsing the certificates of stock, that is, of signing the power of attorney on the back of each. The first may readily be disposed of.

It is urged that in signing the dividend cheque the defendant came within the case of Keyser v. Hitz, supra. In that case the wife received three cheques made to her order. The cheques showed by ap propriate printing that they were dividend cheques on stock of a named national bank. By endorsing them the court charged her with knowledge of what they inevitably told her. But here the cheque endorsed by the wife, though a dividend cheque, was made to the order of the husband, who first endorsed it. Her endorsement of a cheque made payable to the order of her husband, in carrying out what indubitably was a present to her, did not charge her with notice that the stock upon which the dividend was declared stood in her name. Following the reasoning in Keyser v. Hitz, the legal inference and imputation are just the contrary. By accepting from her husband a dividend cheque made payable to his order, she was justified in thinking that the stock upon which it was issued stood in his name. This thought, doubtless, had a bearing upon her next act.

[6] The defendant's next and last act in relation to the bank stock which had been placed in her name without her knowledge or consent, was in affixing her signature to the power of attorney upon the back of each certificate. This she did without looking at their face, or learning what they were. Her husband placed the certificates before her face down, and said, "Mary, will you sign these papers for me?" She said, "What are they?" He replied, "They are some bank stock; I have made a mistake." Continuing, she testified:

"I didn't know that the certificates were in my name; I didn't know anything about them; I knew that Mr. Vreeland would not ask me to do any

thing I should not do; he never has.

my name.

He didn't tell me it was in He didn't tell me in what respect he had made a mistake. I didn't feel that he should explain it. He just said he had made a mistake and asked me to sign it. That was all."

Considering this testimony in connection with corroborating testimony, it appears to us, that what Mary A. Vreeland did, in legal effect, was to make a valid execution of a power of attorney for the transfer of stock. That act, in so far as it authorized a transfer of stock, she cannot avoid by pleading ignorance. As the question here does not involve the validity of the act to effect a transfer, but concerns its evidential imputation of the knowledge with which it was done, we are of opinion that the circumstances which attended the act were a part of it, and affected the evidential inferences to be drawn from it. These circumstances show, that before acting, the defendant requested to be informed as to what she was asked to do; this information was denied her. It was denied her under representations and influences, which, when she acted, led her to believe she was doing something entirely different from that which she was actually doing; that is, she was made to believe she was correcting a mistake of her husband, a mistake affecting his affairs, not that she was dealing with or assigning away her own property. Therefore, we think the circumstances were such as to negative the knowledge, which otherwise it is presumed her act would have imparted. They contradicted the normal imputations of her act, and left her without that knowledge which was a prerequisite to a valid ratification of her husband's unauthorized act.

Upon this line of reasoning we think the court's finding for the defendant upon the evidence can be sustained. But aside from the interpretation favorable to the defendant, of which we think the evidence is susceptible, we are of opinion the judgment must be sustained upon an altogether different ground.

[7-10] There is an undoubted presumption of law, that Mary A. Vreeland knew what she was doing when she endorsed the certificates of stock and that she knew their contents, and thus she ratified the act of her husband. Being a presumption it stands in lieu of evidence of the fact, and had it not been rebutted, it would have been sufficient to fasten liability upon her. Being only a presumption, she endeavored to rebut it by evidence. While neither the evidentiary presumption nor the rebuttal evidence was disputed, the two were in conflict. If the case had gone to the jury with the evidence in this state, the judge doubtless would have submitted the question of her knowledge, and the jury's finding upon the fact of her knowledge would have concluded both parties. Instead of submitting the case to the jury, however, each party asked the court for binding instructions in his favor, which, under Beuttell v. Magone, 157 U. S. 154, 15 Sup. Ct. 566, 39 L. Ed. 654, is not a submission to the court without the intervention of a jury, within the intent of Rev. Stat. §§ 649, 700 (Comp. St. 1916, §§ 1587, 1668), but is equivalent to a joint request for a finding of fact by the court, and when the court, acting upon such request, di

rects the jury to find for one of the parties, both are concluded on its finding.

In this case the parties submitted to the court the question of the wife's ratification of her husband's unauthorized act; that question was one of fact; upon it depended her liability. The court's decision, as evidenced by its instruction to the jury that they render a verdict for the defendant, was a finding of fact, which concluded both parties as effectually as if the same fact had been found by the jury.

The judgment below is affirmed.

NORFOLK SOUTHERN R. CO. v. FOREMAN.

(Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. July 16, 1917.)

No. 1505.

1. ADMIRALTY 46-PROCESS-STATE STATUTE.

A state statute as to how process may be served on a railroad corporation is not controlling in a proceeding in personam in admiralty, to which the Conformity Act June 1, 1872, c. 255 (17 Stat. 196), does not apply.

2. ADMIRALTY 46-PROCESS-SERVICE ON CORPORATION'S SECRETARY.

Service of citation on the secretary of a corporation in a proceeding in personam against it in admiralty is good, he being such a head officer as secures knowledge thereof to it.

3. APPEARANCE 24(1)-ACTIONS-SERVICE OF PROCESS-WAIVER OF OB

JECTIONS.

The court having jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and the parties being within its territorial jurisdiction, and defendant's contention on special appearance being that the service of process on its secretary was not good service on it, it waives its rights, in that respect. by answering and going to trial on the merits, after such question is decided against it; especially where it not only asked that the service be quashed, but sought to procure a dismissal.'

4. SHIPPING
FOR RESCUE.

84(3)-INJURY TO SERVANT-DANGEROUS WORK-FACILITIES

Devices and facilities reasonably fit and accessible to effect a rescue should be provided where an employé is required to work where he may be subjected to the danger of being thrown into the water.

5. ADMIRALTY 70-PLEADING AND EVIDENCE.

Under the informal proceedings in admiralty, unless defendant pleads surprise and procures a continuance, the court may, in action for death of an employé, allow testimony of concurring circumstances indicating negligence, and base a decree thereon, though not particularly or specifically pleaded, especially when they are the dangerous character of the work required to be done if performed by an inexperienced man, as was deceased.

6. ADMIRALTY 118-REVIEW-DECISION ON FACTS.

Decision of the judge in an admiralty case on questions of fact, there being involved conflicting evidence or the credibility of witnesses examined before him, will be reversed only if manifestly contrary to the evidence.

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk; Edmund Waddill, Jr., Judge.

For other cases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes 244 F.-23