In the Douglas et al. v. Cunningham et al., 1934 case, the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a dispute involving stockholders of a corporation and their rights to dividends declared by directors but not yet paid out. The plaintiffs, who were minority shareholders in an oil company, alleged that the majority shareholders had manipulated corporate affairs for personal gain at their expense. They claimed that these actions violated state laws governing corporations and sought restitution from both individual defendants and the corporation itself. The court held that under Delaware law (where the company was incorporated), unpaid dividends belonged to stockholders as individuals rather than being part of general corporate assets subject to claims by creditors or others with interests in overall corporate solvency. This meant that even if some form of wrongdoing had occurred, it did not necessarily entitle minority shareholders to recover damages directly from those responsible unless they could show specific harm beyond mere diminution in value of their shares due to mismanagement or other misconduct. Furthermore, while acknowledging potential issues around fairness and equity among different classes of stakeholders within corporations more broadly speaking - particularly when there is significant disparity between majority vs minority ownership positions - ultimately this was seen as matter for legislative rather than judicial intervention.

In the dissenting opinion for Douglas et al. v. Cunningham et al., Justice Cardozo disagreed with the majority's decision to uphold a Massachusetts law that allowed creditors to seize and sell shares of stock owned by debtors, even if those stocks were located in another state. He argued that this violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, which requires states to respect each other's laws and judicial decisions. According to Justice Cardozo, allowing one state (in this case Massachusetts) to ignore property rights established under another state's laws (New York), would undermine interstate commerce and cooperation between states. Furthermore, he believed it was unfair for a debtor who had relied on New York law when purchasing their stocks to suddenly find themselves subject to Massachusetts law simply because they owed money there.