Mills

Two actions were brought, one by a plaintiff named Mills, and the other by a plaintiff named Bergman, against a number of persons as defendants. The two actions were consolidated and tried together, and judgment was given in favor of each plaintiff. The defendants appeal. The two actions are identical as to all matters pertinent to our discussion, and we may treat them as a single action.

The complaint alleges that the plaintiff is a judgment creditor of the El Dorado Oil Company, a corporation, and has been unable to collect his judgment on execution, that the defendants respectively were the subscribers, owners, and holders of shares in the company in certain specified amounts, that there had been paid in on the shares of the defendants only fifteen per cent of their par value, and the defendants had agreed with the corporation when they acquired their stock to pay the balance of its par value when legally called on so to do. Upon these facts the complaint asks judgment against each defendant for enough of the amount unpaid upon his stock to satisfy the plaintiff’s judgment against the company.

The answer of the defendants admits the existence of the plaintiff’s judgment, and…