(Download) "Martindell v. Lake Shore Nat. Bank" by Supreme Court of Illinois * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Martindell v. Lake Shore Nat. Bank
- Author : Supreme Court of Illinois
- Release Date : January 16, 1958
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 76 KB
Description
This cause presents the issue of whether Jackson Martindell, herein referred to as plaintiff, is entitled to specific performance
of an option contract to purchase 67 per cent of the debentures and stock of Marquis-Who's Who, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation
which publishes Who's Who in America and similar publications. The circuit court of Cook County granted such relief upon plaintiff's
motion for a summary decree but, upon review, the decree was reversed and specific performance denied by the Appellate Court.
(Martindell v. Lake Shore National Bank, 15 Ill. App.2d 217.) We have granted plaintiff's petition for further review. From the pleadings, exhibits, documents and affidavits upon which the summary decree was based, it appears that Wheeler Sammons,
Sr., and his wife, Dorothy W. Sammons, had, for a long time prior to 1951, been engaged as partners in the publishing business
under the name and style of The A.N. Marquis Company, with principal offices in the city of Chicago. A son, Wheeler, Jr.,
was employed by the company in the late 1940's but was not so engaged when the first events which led to this litigation occurred.
In 1951, Sammons, Sr., conducted various negotiations for the sale of the business or for financial backing which would assure
the perpetuation of the enterprise. He was also interested in establishing a public library of biographies with the data collected
by Who's Who publications as a nucleus. At the time in question the plaintiff was a New York resident and the president and
a director of American Institute of Management, a not-for-profit corporation established for research into the techniques
and principles of management. Sammons learned of the plaintiff from a mutual friend and, in writing to such friend in June,
1951, Sammons stated: "If you feel he is the man to carry on `Who's Who — I'd rely on your judgment. * * * For reasons of
which you know, I now do not have any cause, as I have had heretofore, for aiming toward `familial successorial perpetuation,'
* * *." In a subsequent letter of June, 1952, to the same man, who was ultimately plaintiff's attorney in the transaction,
Sammons stated that he understood plaintiff was coming to Chicago and remarked: "I am quite convinced of the desirability
of working out some way to have `Who's Who' his responsibility when my stint is over, and I hope something can be worked out."
Further showing the development of a friendly relationship between Sammons and the plaintiff, the latter's complaint alleges,
and the answer of Dorothy W. Sammons admits, that Sammons was made a director of the American Institute of Management and
received 10 per cent of its paid-in stock.