In this action on two written contracts for the sale of electric power, plaintiff, . Ozark Border Electric Cooperative, obtained a jury verdict for $1,998 upon which *587 judgment was entered. On this appeal by-defendants, the sole issue is whether the trial court erred in overruling the motion of defendants’ counsel, at the close of voir dire examination of the jury panel and beforе peremptory challenges were made, that the court excuse for cause seven members of the panel who had stated that they were “members” of plaintiff co-operative.
It stands alleged in plaintiff’s petition and admitted in defendants’ answer that plaintiff is “a corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of the State of Missouri”; and, although the articles of incorporation are not before us, it is abundantly clear from the record that plaintiff is a rural electric co-operative organized under what is now Chapter 394. (All statutory references are to RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S.) In our search for the proper solution to the problem presented, we first consider the nature of plaintiff co-operative and the relationship betwеen plaintiff and its “members.” As enumerated in Greene County Rural Electric Co-operative v. Nelson,
Under our Rural Electric Co-operative Law [Chapter 394], cast in the conventional co-operative image, a “member” is defined as including “each incorporator of a cooperative and each person admitted to and retaining membership therein.” Sec. 394.-020(3). The “members,” each of whom “shall .be entitled to one vote on each matter submitted to a vote, at a meeting,” either annual or special [Sec. 394.120(7)], elect and control thе compensation of the directors who manage the business and affairs of the co-operative [Sec. 394.140]; and the “members” are invested with authority, among other things, to approve or reject proposed amendments to the articles of incorporation [Sec. 394.090, subd. 1(1)], to adopt, amend or repeal bylaws [Sec. 394.-110], to change the location of the principal office [Sec. 394.090, subd. 2], and to approve or reject any proposed consolidation or merger with another co-operative or cooperatives [Sec. 394.210] or any proposed dissolution of their own co-operative. Sec. 394.240. “Revenues of a co-operative for any fiscal year in excess of the amount thereof necessary” to pay expenses and provide reserves “shall, unless otherwise determined by a vote of the members, be distributed by the co-operative to its members as patronage refunds prorated in accordance with the patronage of the co-operative *588 by the respective members paid for during such fiscal year” [Sec. 394.170] ; and, in the event of dissolutiоn, the remaining property and assets (after payment of or provision for all debts, obligations and liabilities of the co-operative) shall be distributed “among its members in proportion to the aggregate patronage of each such member during the seven years next preceding” the date of filing of the certificate of dissolution. Sec. 394.240, subd. 3(5).
Being neither a partnership nоr an ordinary business corporation, instant plaintiff is of a “distinct character” recognized and conferred by our General Assembly in the special act under which it was organized and operates [cf. Kuhns v. Horn, Or.,
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet,”
a Georgia court appropriately has said that, “(b)y whatever word the customer may be designated, he is still a customer, and by whatever name a shareholder may be referred to he is still a sharеholder,” and that one word in the Rural Electric Cooperative Law “designates both the shareholder and the customer; that word is ‘member.’ ” Lamar Electric Membership Corp. v. Carroll, supra, 79 S.E.2d loc. cit. 840.
The general rule that a stockholder in a corporation is incompetent to sit as a juror in an action to which the corporation is a party or in which it has a direct pecuniary interest is stated without qualification or exception [50 C.J.S., Juries, § 213, p. 949; 31 Am.Jur., Jury, § 206, p. 175] and has been applied without censure or dissent. Hess’ Adm’r. v. Louisville & N. R. Co.,
Since, as we have seen, “members” of a rural electric co-operative “are both owners and customers” and “at once take the place of the stockholders and customers of privately owned utilities,” it would seem to be logical and proper that, in determining their competency to sit as jurors in an action to which their co-operative is a party, the same rule should be followed and applied as in cases involving stockholders of other corporations and thus their disqualification for such service should be declared. Indeed, that has been the uniform holding in the only reported cases disclosed by comprehensive research, which have considered and ruled the competency of members of a co-operative association or corporation to sit as jurors in an action to which such association or corporation has been a pаrty. Salt River Valley Water Users’ Ass’n. v. Berry,
On this appeal, plaintiff’s counsel undertake to justify the contrary holding of the trial court on two theories, to-wit, (1) that the interest of the seven veniremen, who were members of plaintiff co-operative, was too remote to disqualify them, and (2) that objection to the seven veniremen because of “their possible financial interest in the outcome of the case” was waived by failure to interrogate them specifically concerning “financial interest.” The only case cited in support of the first contention is Kendall v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, Mo.,
As the Kendall oрinion noted [327 S.W.2d loe. cit. 177], “* * * bias, of course, may be inferred from interest in the result of the case and that was the basis of the common law disqualification of taxpayers in suits against the municipality in which they resided” — a disqualification which, until enactment of what is now Sec. 494.040, was recognized and enforced in Missouri [Eberle v. St. Louis Public Schools,
Much has been said concerning the preeminent importance of preserving and safeguarding the right to trial by jury and the disinterested, fair and impartial status of those who serve as jurors. One of our English forebears animatedly declaimed in the style of his day that: “In my mind, he was guilty of no error, he was charged with no exaggeration, he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said that all we see about us, kings, lords, and commons, the whole machinery of the state, аll the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, aid in simply bringing twelve good men into a box.” Henry Brougham, State of the Law, 1828; Simpson v. Witte Iron Works Co.,
Our Missouri opinions declare that “(u)nder our system of jurisprudence there is no feature of a trial mоre important and more necessary to the pure and just administration of the law than that every litigant shall be accorded a fair trial before a jury of his countrymen, who enter upon the trial totally disinterested and wholly unprejudiced.” Theobald v. St. Louis Transit Co.,
If thesе virile statements of principle are not to “become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal” [1 Corinthians 13:1] and if our reaffirmation thereof is not to degenerate into impotent lip service, we are of the conviction that, even as at common law a taxpayer was disqualified to serve as a juror in a suit against the municipality of his residence because of his interest, though rеmote, in contribution of his mite, and even as a stockholder of an ordinary business corporation is disqualified to sit in an action to which the corporation is a party because of his interest, however slight, in the subject-matter in litigation [Hess’ Adm’r. v. Louisville & N. R. Co., supra, 61 S.W.2d loc. cit. 301; Murchison Nat. Bank v. Dunn Oil Mills Co., supra, 64 S.E. loc. cit. 885; Page v. Contoocook Valley Railroad,, supra], so we should hold, as we do, that a member of a rural electric co-operative incorporated under Chapter 394, whose status is akin to that of a stockholder and whose interest, financial and otherwise, is no more remote or minute and certainly no less active or live than that of many stockholders, is disqualified to sit as a juror in a suit to which the co-operative is a party. See again Salt River Valley Water Users’ Ass’n. v. Berry, supra; Peanut Growers’ Exch. v. Bobbitt, supra; State v. Thomlinson, supra. We are not impressed by the fact that the seven veniremen, who were members of plaintiff co-operative, thought that they could sit in fair and impartial judgment, as was indicated either affirmatively by their statements or negatively by their silence. For, veniremen are not to determine their own qualifications [Moore v. Middlewest Freightways, supra, 266 S.W.2d loc. cit. 586(12); Piehler v. Kansas City Public Service Co., supra, 211 S.W.2d loc. cit. 463(5)], and we remain mindful of the eternal verity that, whatever else may change in this changing world, the impelling self-interest, motivating emotions and besetting-frailties of members of the human family abide unchanged.
In support of their second contention, i. e., that objection to the seven challenged veniremen because of “their possible financial interest in the outcome of the case” was waived by failure to interrogate them specifically concerning “financial interest,” plaintiff’s counsel cite State v. Murray,
We have not overlooked plaintiff’s-respondent’s motion to dismiss the appeal becausе defendants’-appellants’ notice of appeal states that it is taken from the order overruling the motion for new trial. Of course, an appeal such as this may be taken only from the final judgment [Sec. 512.020]; and, since our appellate courts have pointed out that fact from time to time over a period of fifteen years, “it seems to us that all members of the bar should now be prepared to take appeals in compliance with the statute, and cease to be content with
attempts
to do so in good faith.” Terrell v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co., Mo.,
It is the judgment of this court that plaintiff’s-respondent’s motion to dismiss the appeal be overruled, that defendants’-appellants’ motion to strike said motion to dismiss the appeal be overruled, that the judgment for plaintiff be set aside and for naught held, and that this cause be remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.