# Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp.

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 20, 1949 · 337 U.S. 541

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420350

## Case

- **Full name:** COHEN, EXECUTRIX, Et Al. v. BENEFICIAL INDUSTRIAL LOAN CORP. Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 20, 1949
- **Citations:** 337 U.S. 541; 69 S. Ct. 1221; 93 L. Ed. 2d 1528; 93 L. Ed. 1528; 1949 U.S. LEXIS 2149
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Douglas
- **Judges:** Jackson, Douglas, Rutledge, Frankfurter
- **Cited by:** 10,256 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by American Express Warehousing, Ltd. v. Transamerica Insurance Company, 380 F.2d 277 (1967).
- Negative treatments: 2
- Distinguished by: 9
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420350

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that there is a right to appeal a Case: 19-1922 Document: 82 Page: 8 Filed: 07/09/2020 8 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE, INC. “small class” of orders “which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important t…
- holding that a court shall not “permit itself to be used to litigate a purchased grievance or become a party to speculation in wrongs done to corporations[,]” and requiring plaintiff to show, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23.1, “that an action is not a collusive one to confer jurisdic…
- holding that appellate jurisdiction exists, despite the absence of a final judgment, "in that small class [of decisions] which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independ…
- holding that a recognized exception to the final judgment rule exists for a "small class [of interlocu- tory orders] which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent …
- holding that a recognized exception to the final judgment rule exists for a “small class [of interlocutory orders] which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of…

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom
Mr. Justice Frankfurter concurs, dissenting in part.
The cause of action on which this suit is brought is a derivative one. Though it belongs to the corporation, the stockholders are entitled under state law to enforce it. The measure of the cause of action is the claim which the corporation has against the alleged wrongdoers. This New Jersey statute does hot add one iota to nor subtract one iota from that cause of action. It merely prescribes the method by which stockholders may enforce it. Each state has numerous regulations governing the institution of shits in its courts.- They may favor the litigation or they may affect it adversely. But they do not fall under the principle of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 , unless they define, qualify or delimit the cause of action or otherwise relate to it.
This-New Jersey statute, like statutes governing security for costs, regulates only the procedure for instituting a particular cause of action and hence need not be applied in- this diversity suit in the federal court. Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure defines that procedure for the federal courts.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420350. Public record. Not legal advice.