DeWitt Truck Brokers v. W. Ray Flemming Fruit Co.
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
540 F.2d 681 (1976)
Flemming (defendant), who owned roughly 90 percent of his corporation's stock and was unclear even about who its other stockholders and officers were, ran the company without any director or stockholder meetings, personally received all salary and dividend payments (unauthorized by any board) even while the corporation had no working capital or profit, and used the corporation's only operating funds — commissions and transportation charges the corporation told growers it was withholding to pay DeWitt (plaintiff) — for his own benefit; the district court pierced the corporate veil and held Flemming personally liable to DeWitt.
Whether, where a single individual owns a substantial portion of a corporation's stock, and where there are other factors in support of piercing the corporate veil, the stockholder may be held individually liable.