American Family Care, Inc. v. Irwin

571 So. 2d 1053, 1990 WL 212407
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedOctober 26, 1990
Docket89-828, 89-845 and 89-945
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 571 So. 2d 1053 (American Family Care, Inc. v. Irwin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Family Care, Inc. v. Irwin, 571 So. 2d 1053, 1990 WL 212407 (Ala. 1990).

Opinion

ON APPLICATION FOR REHEARING

This Court's opinion of September 14, 1990, is withdrawn and the following is substituted as the opinion of this Court.

A suit in equity among stockholders for control of a small corporation best describes this case, which has at various times involved numerous parties and a plethora of complex issues.

American Family Care, Inc. ("AFC"), operates six free-standing out-patient family practice medical clinics. Dr. D. Bruce Irwin owned 47% of the capital stock of AFC; Dr. James D. Blake owned 38%; and Lankford Investment Company, Ltd. ("LICO"), owned 15% (706 shares). Irwin and Blake disagreed about a number of topics. After the board of directors (Irwin, Blake, and Frank Lankford) elected Blake as president of AFC, a position that Irwin had held since the incorporation of AFC, Irwin resigned his positions as an officer (he had been elected vice president) and director of AFC. Irwin sued AFC, demanding possession of, and amounts due as rent for, one of AFC's places of business that was owned by Irwin and Blake, as individuals, and that was leased to AFC. AFC, Blake, and LICO filed a complaint for an injunction and allied equitable relief against Irwin.

As a counterclaim, Irwin filed a stockholder's derivative action on behalf of AFC against Blake, Lankford, and AFC. LICO *Page 1055 had purchased its 706 shares of AFC stock in 1984 for $1,000,000. While this action was pending, LICO sold this stock in AFC to American Family Partners ("the partnership") for $750,000. The partnership was composed of six physicians (including Blake) and The Physicians P.C. ("P.C."), as partners. Irwin had offered LICO $650,000 and $25,000 a year for three years for the stock. P.C. later purchased the 706 shares of AFC stock from the partnership by borrowing $700,000 and giving the partners in the partnership $50,000 in Class B preferred stock in P.C. with a preference on liquidation of the 706 shares of LICO stock.

After hearing ore tenus evidence, the trial court made detailed findings of fact. The following findings of fact are pertinent to this appeal:

"12. From time to time . . . there have been discussions concerning the sale of the stock of . . . AFC to outside parties. . . . Irwin and Lankford discussed the possible purchase of LICO stock by Irwin. Discussions or negotiations then took place between Lankford and other doctors in [P.C.] and it was finally decided that the LICO stock would be sold to a group of such doctors. A partnership styled American Family Partners ('the Partnership') was formed by some, but not all, of the doctors in [P.C.] for the purpose of purchasing the LICO stock for $750,000.00. Blake was the managing partner of the Partnership. The transfer of LICO's 706 shares of stock took place in May, 1987. During the discussions with the doctors agreeing to purchase the stock, Blake suggested that perhaps 'matching funds' would be available from AFC. In order to purchase the LICO stock, the Partnership borrowed the $750,000.00 from Central Bank of the South ('Central Bank'). In connection with the loan, Blake and the other individual members of the Partnership guaranteed the repayment of the loan, [P.C.] guaranteed the repayment (even though not all doctors in [P.C.] were members of the Partnership), and South Highland Hospital Association guaranteed the repayment of the loan. The Partnership pledged the LICO stock and Blake pledged his personal stock as security for the loan. The Central Bank loan called for principal payments to be made in eleven equal monthly installments of $4,167.00 each with the unpaid balance being due in the twelfth month. Individual members of the Partnership made payment to [P.C.] and [P.C.] made the payment to Central Bank. On several occasions some of the doctors didn't make their monthly payments and [P.C.] had to cover for them.

"13. Upon the acquisition of the LICO stock, the Partnership executed a Voting Trust Agreement by which it authorized Blake to vote the 706 shares of stock, thus giving Blake effective control of AFC.

"14. Several events occurred in the spring of 1988. The Partnership decided to sell the LICO stock to [P.C.]. In order to purchase the LICO stock [P.C.] had to borrow the money from SouthTrust Bank of Alabama ('SouthTrust') and the loan was guaranteed by Baptist Medical Center which in turn required the pledge of the LICO stock and Blake's personal stock as security for the guarantee. By the Spring of 1988 several members of the Partnership had stopped practicing medicine with [P.C.] and had gone to other jobs, hospitals or clinics. The Partnership fell behind in its payments to [P.C.] for [P.C.'s] payment on the Central Bank Note and in fact [P.C.] made the last three monthly payments without receiving payments from the doctors. [P.C.] agreed to purchase the LICO stock for $750,000.00 by paying $700,000.00 cash and issuing $50,000.00 of Class B Preferred Stock. The Partnership was then liquidated and its assets distributed to its members. The $700,000.00 was borrowed from SouthTrust. Although Blake was not an officer of [P.C.], he was the principal person involved [in] negotiating the transaction with SouthTrust and Baptist Medical Center. The SouthTrust Note called for 59 consecutive monthly payments of $7,523.00 (as adjusted for fluctuation in the interest *Page 1056 which was to be the bank's base rate plus .5% or 9.5% at first). The unpaid balance was due on the 60th payment. Although the issue is strongly contested, the Court finds that AFC increased its payments to [P.C.] by $1,000.00 per doctor per month in 1988 in order to provide [P.C.] with the funds necessary to pay the monthly payments on the [P.C.] notes, first to Central Bank and then to SouthTrust. This increase in payments from AFC to [P.C.] was made without amending the PC Agreement as required by its terms. Upon its acquisition of the LICO stock, [P.C.] executed an Addendum to the Voting Trust Agreement by which it authorized Blake to vote the 706 shares of stock.

"15. It has been argued that the $1,000.00 per doctor per month increase in the payments from AFC to [P.C.] was not for the purpose of allowing [P.C.] to purchase the LICO stock from the Partnership but instead was to give the doctors in [P.C.] a raise. However, none of the increase has been passed on through to the doctors. Furthermore, this transaction, including the Voting Trust Agreement, simply can not be viewed in a vacuum. It took place while this case was pending and while the control of AFC was definitely in dispute.

"Many of the facts set out above are very strongly disputed and in making its findings above and [in] the opinion below the Court has considered not only the documents and evidence submitted to it but the demeanor of the parties and witnesses and the interests and biases shown by the parties and witnesses. This is one of those cases where it is simply not possible that all witnesses spoke the truth all of the time. In making its decision in this case the Court does not mean to imply that it believed everything that any party stated from the witness stand.

"It is the opinion of the Court that at least after the purchase of the LICO stock by the Partnership failed, the purchase of the stock by [P.C.] was contrived, primarily by Blake, in order to prevent Irwin or someone who might support Irwin from acquiring the stock. It is likely that the original purchase of the LICO stock by the Partnership falls in that same category but that is not really material to this decision except to the extent that [P.C.] paid, with money supplied by AFC, the Central Bank note payment for the Partnership when not all of the members of [P.C.] were members of the Partnership.

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Bluebook (online)
571 So. 2d 1053, 1990 WL 212407, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-family-care-inc-v-irwin-ala-1990.