Hornstein v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 292 N.Y. 468 (1944)

New York Court of Appeals, argued 10 January 1944 and decided 25 May 1944, per curiam. Henry Hornstein and others sued on behalf of Paramount Pictures, Inc. and its stockholders.

The court describes the case as “This stockholders’ derivative action was brought in behalf of Paramount Pictures, Inc., to compel its officers and directors to repay to its treasury sums they had paid therefrom to labor union officials.” On the facts as found below: “The payments in question were coerced by threats of the payees that in the contrary event they would call a strike of the employees of Paramount Pictures, Inc.; the threatened strike would have been unlawful and was calculated to destroy the nation-wide business of the corporation.” The court held that such payments did not fall under section 380 of the Penal Law, which punishes giving money to a labor representative to influence him, saying it was “not ready to impute to section 380 of the Penal Law the meaning that one who is victimized by an extortion of the kind in question should on that account suffer loss of his liberty or property.” The judgment was affirmed with costs.

The per curiam text does not name the payees. The names appear in the points of counsel printed with the report: the appellants argued that “The giving of Paramount’s funds to Bioff and Browne constituted the commission of a crime,” and counsel for the officer who made the payments answered that “The payments to Bioff and Browne were extorted.” This is a state civil case, not a federal record; its rights basis is stated above.