Pierce

This appeal is taken from an order or judgment entered in favor of the petitioners for a peremptory writ of mandate directed to the appellants herein by which each of them, as the president and the secretary, respectively, of the California & Eastern Steamship Company, a corporation, was directed to permit said petitioners as stockholders therein to inspect and examine the corporate records of said corporation.

As in force at the date of the judgment, such a right in a bona fide stockholder of a corporation was secured to him by the provisions of section 377 of the Civil Code. However, said statute also contained the limitation upon such right that “the board of directors may, by unanimous vote, deny such examination or inspection to a stockholder who demands the same with intent to use to the injury of the corporation the information to be acquired thereby, ... ”.

Prom the record herein it appears that, based upon its conclusion that the examination and inspection of the records of the corporation was sought by the stockholders “with intent to use to the injury of the corporation”,— by the unanimous vote of the “executive committee” of the board of directors, the request of the…