May the company refuse a successor shareholder’s request to inspect the old books from the period when his father held the shares, on the ground that “those are the old shareholder’s-era books”?
Generally no. Shareholder qualification is comprehensively succeeded from the moment of inheritance; case practice widely supports a successor shareholder’s inspection of company materials from the period during which the decedent held the shares. The company may defend only on whether the request satisfied the prior procedure and whether the purpose was proper; it cannot refuse by period demarcation.
