Alliance Business Investment Co. v. G-R Development Co.

1968 OK 167, 447 P.2d 741
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedDecember 3, 1968
DocketNo. 41672
StatusPublished

This text of 1968 OK 167 (Alliance Business Investment Co. v. G-R Development Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alliance Business Investment Co. v. G-R Development Co., 1968 OK 167, 447 P.2d 741 (Okla. 1968).

Opinion

BLACKBIRD, Justice.

The plaintiff in error, hereinafter referred to as “defendant” is licensed to do business as a “Small Business Investment Corporation” under the provisions of the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 (72 Stat. 691, Tit. 15 U.S.C.A. § 681 et seq.), hereinafter referred to merely as the “Act”.

On September 18, 1961, defendant in error, hereinafter referred to as “plaintiff”, negotiated a loan of $23,000.00 from defendant, the proceeds of which were to be used to remodel a building on certain Rogers County real estate for use as a bowling center, under the terms of a certain “Loan Agreement”, executed the same day. In connection with said loan, plaintiff delivered to defendants its promissory note in that principal amount, payable in monthly installments, its second mortgage covering the real estate, a letter executed by two of its officers and principal stockholders, C. T. Redfern and A. L. Graham, guaranteeing repayment of said loan, another instrument executed by these two stockholders, entitled “Pledge of Securities With Voting Rights”, and another written document entitled “Seven-Year Common Stock Purchase Warrant”-executed for plaintiff, by its president.

Almost two years later, plaintiff, desiring to repay the balance due on said loan, verified the amount of said balance as $21,723.82, and, on August 5, 1963, enclosed a cashier’s check for said amount in a letter to defendant tendering said check as payment in full of said indebtedness, subject to defendant’s return of the above mentioned instruments plaintiff had delivered to defendant when the loan was made, as aforesaid, together with the stock certificates defendant was holding under the terms of Redfern’s and Graham’s aforementioned pledge.

Shortly thereafter, plaintiff instituted the present action alleging in its petition, among other things, that defendant refused to return the above mentioned Seven-Year Common Stock Purchase Warrant “ * * * and as a consequence thereof refused to accept its above mentioned tender of the loan repayment in satisfaction of its said indebtedness to defendant.” Plaintiff further alleged that if defendant exercised the rights purportedly granted to it by the stock purchase warrant, it would obtain, for $23,000.00 an ownership interest in plaintiff corporation worth much more than that sum, and “thereby be unjustly enriched.” Plaintiff further alleged, among other things, that at the time of the stock purchase warrant’s execution and delivery, defendant’s officers represented to plaintiff’s officers that the warrant was desired only as additional security for the repayment of the loan, and that the right to purchase stock, therein purportedly granted, would not be exercised, unless plaintiff defaulted in carrying out its obligations under the Loan Agreement. Plaintiff alleged, in substance, that it had never been in default, and prayed, among other things, [743]*743for a judgment cancelling said stock purchase warrant and ordering it returned to plaintiff. Copies of all of the above-mentioned instruments executed and delivered in connection with the loan transaction were attached to plaintiff’s petition.

In its answer to plaintiff’s petition, defendant characterized as “irrelevant”, plaintiff’s allegations that defendant’s officers had represented to plaintiff’s officers that the Stock Purchase Warrant was desired only as additional security for the loan, and would not be exercised unless plaintiff defaulted in carrying out the terms of the Loan Agreement. In said pleading, defendant admitted that the installment payments under the promissory note had been paid, as they became due, but it denied that plaintiff had never been in default of any of the note’s provisions.

In its said answer, defendant further alleged that, pursuant to § 308 of the Act, certain Federal Rules and Regulations governing the operations of Small Business Investment Companies had been “prescribed”, and that § 107.501 of these Rules and Regulations (Tit. 13 CFR) authorized defendant’s acquisition of the Stock Purchase Warrant from plaintiff, that said Warrant was properly acquired, and “is a present, valid and subsisting obligation of plaintiff.” Defendant concluded its answer by praying that plaintiff be denied any relief, and, in a cross petition, sought judgment over against plaintiff on three alleged causes of action, in which, it asserted, among other things, that the balance due on the promissory note, as of August 2, 1964, was $19,664.95, with interest at the rate of 10% per annum from that date until paid; that plaintiff was liable to defendant in the further sum of $2325.00 for attorneys’ fees; and sought a money judgment against plaintiff for the total of these sums, as well as foreclosure of its real estate mortgage, and the appointment of a receiver for plaintiff’s business and the mortgaged property.

In its reply to defendant’s answer and answer to cross petition, plaintiff alleged, among other things, that the only substantial issue in the cause was whether or not the defendant was entitled to retain the Stock Purchase Warrant after plaintiff’s tender of the loan’s repayment; and it therein moved for judgment on the pleadings. Plaintiff also therein denied that the Stock Purchase Warrant was obtained by defendant under, or pursuant to, § 107.501, supra, and alleged, among other things, that the provisions of the Regulations’ § 107.601, under which the loan from defendant to plaintiff was made, “expressly prohibited the defendant from acquiring any stock or other proprietary interest in a borrower, except through the medium of collateral security.” Plaintiff denied that defendant had any right, title, or privilege to the Stock Purchase Warrant under the Act, or the Federal Rules and Regulations prescribed thereunder.

After defendant filed a reply to plaintiff’s answer to its cross petition, the parties agreed (according to the recital in the journal entry of the court’s judgment) that “certain questions of law” should be presented and decided upon the parties’ stipulation of facts and their briefs, at a pre-trial conference held after plaintiff had filed in the case a deposition given by R. L. Graham, evidently contemplated to support its hereinbefore mentioned allegations concerning the representations made to plaintiff’s officers by defendant’s officers that the stock-purchase right purportedly given defendant by the Stock Purchase Warrant would not be exercised, except in the event of plaintiff’s default in fulfilling its obligations under the parties’ Loan Agreement.

The judgment thereafter entered in plaintiff’s favor and denying defendant any recovery, or relief, on its cross petition, was based upon certain findings of fact and conclusions of law incorporated in its journal entry. The material portions of these findings and conclusions, as they appear therein, are as follows:

“(findings of fact)
“3. From an examination of the pleadings and exhibits filed in this case, the written documents filed as exhibits to [744]*744the Pleadings fully evidence the transaction out of which this action arises. From the four corners of these documents, the Stock Purchase Warrant attached as Exhibit F to plaintiff’s Petition was not acquired by the defendant in connection with the acquisition by defendant of an equity security issued by the plaintiff, but was obtained in connection with a loan of money from defendant to plaintiff.
“4.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1968 OK 167, 447 P.2d 741, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alliance-business-investment-co-v-g-r-development-co-okla-1968.