Cuneo

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of the defendants. The action was one instituted by the plaintiff on behalf of himself as a stockholder of one of the defendants, J. Cuneo (a corporation), and on behalf of other stockholders thereof, to recover from the defendant A. P. Giannini for the corporation the sum of $37,883.34, alleged to have been illegally paid to said defendant Giannini by the directors of said corporation.

The facts of the case are substantially uncontroverted and are briefly as follows: For many years J. Cuneo had been engaged in business in San Francisco and adjacent counties as a dealer in and trader of real estate and other kinds of property, with his offices in that city. In the year 1903 he caused to be formed the J. Cuneo Company, a family corporation, as a more convenient instrumentality for the conduct of his business and the consolidation and handling of his properties. The corporation when thus formed took over his business and continued it. Shortly after the formation of the corporation Cuneo died, leaving a widow and nine children, of whom three were minors. One of the elder daughters was at the time married to the defendant A. P. Giannini, and…