UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

In order to give a standing in a court of equity to a small minority of stockholders contesting as ultra vires an act of the directors against which a large majority makes no objection, it must appear that they have exhausted all the means within their reach to obtain redress of their grievances within the corporation itself, and that they were stockholders at the time of the transactions complained of, or that the shares have devolved on them since by operation of law.