Baker v. Baker

169 S.W.2d 1016
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 10, 1943
DocketNo. 11219
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 169 S.W.2d 1016 (Baker v. Baker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baker v. Baker, 169 S.W.2d 1016 (Tex. Ct. App. 1943).

Opinion

SMITH, Chief Justice.

This action was brought by Miss Myla Baker against Earl M. Baker to recover two-thirds of the common stock of the Gunter Hqtel Corporation, owner of the Gunter Hotel in the City of San Antonio. Miss Baker recovered as prayed for and Earl M. Baker has appealed.

Appellee, now seventy years of age, and her brother T. B. Baker entered the hotel business as partners more than forty years ago and in time amassed large interests in hotel and other properties, including real estate in Texas.

Earl Baker, now fifty years old, is a nephew of Myla and T. B. Baker, and helped them in their business activities from the days of his youth, taking an increasingly active and responsible part in their affairs until the year 1930, when their business difficulties and their inability to carry on as -they had been, induced appellee and T. B. Baker to convey all their partnership assets to Earl, in the hope and upon his promise that he would salvage their properties and put them upon a paying basis. Accordingly, in 1930, and in furtherance of this plan, the properties were duly conveyed to Earl Baker, who thereafter assumed control of and operated the entire estate, with apparent substantial success. In the meantime, for reasons obscure and immaterial now, T. B. Baker seems to have faded out of the picture and was no longer directly interested, appellee having succeeded to his interest, with his concurrence.

In the summer of 1938 the parties began to discuss the matter of an accounting from Earl to Myla Baker, looking to a settlement between them of their respective rights in and to the assets of the estate and accretions thereto. By late in November of that year the parties appear to have reached a tentative agreement of settlement of their respective claims upon the estate, and ap-pellee’s attornej’', Sam R. Sayers, Esq., of Fort Worth, prepared a form of a master contract designed to cover a complete and final settlement, including a division of the Gunter Hotel stock. Appellee signed this agreement, and all the parties then met in Fort Worth to close the matter and execute all papers necessary to that end. But when [1018]*1018the proposed master agreement was presented to Earl Baker he refused to execute it, upon the objection that it included a stipulation that appellee was to have two-thirds of the common stock of the Gunter Hotel Corporation. At that time that stock was held by and in the name of Earl Baker and two other co-trustees for the benefit of a creditor of the corporation, whose property, the Gunter Hotel, was heavily encumbered. Earl Baker’s refusal to execute the proposed master agreement, because of the inclusion of the stipulation that appellee should have two-thirds of the Gunter stock, terminated that attempt to settle the estate, and Earl Baker returned to his home in San Antonio. Sayers then renewed his efforts to effect a settlement and after a few days obtained Earl Baker’s consent, by telephone, to execute the proposed master agreement. All the parties and their respective attorneys then Reconvened in Fort Worth, on December 8, 1938, for the purpose of consummating the settlement as then tentatively agreed upon. But upon renewal of negotiations Earl Baker again and finally refused to execute any written agreement to divide the Gunter stock with appellee, but orally agreed to procure the stock for her within the next sixty to ninety days; he was not in a position to procure and deliver the stock to Myla because of the then status of the title to it. With that understanding the parties then proceeded with the settlement and executed some fifteen or sixteen instruments in consummation thereof.

The parties seem to have come into the filial and full agreement of settlement on December 9th, as evidenced by a master contract bearing that date, in lieu of the master agreement prepared by Sayers. That instrument and all the others executed in performance of its stipulations were finally executed and exchanged on December 11th, although all but the master agreement, which was dated December 9th, were dated December 10th, and all were purportedly executed and acknowledged on that date. By consent of the parties no provision was included in the master agreement concerning the Gun- ■ ier Hotel stock.

In the so-called master agreement it was provided that, whereas, each of the respective parties “was the owner of certain properties” thereinafter decribed, and

“Whereas, the parties hereto have placed an equal value on their respective properties and desire to exchange said properties hereinafter described on a basis of an equal value and regard said exchange as mutually advantageous:

“Now, therefore, we, Earl M. Baker and Gladys Whorton Baker, party of the first part, and Myla Baker, party of the second part, for and in consideration of the mutual promises and agreements herein to be performed by the respective parties, as well as other good and sufficient consideration, do enter into the following contract of exchange of property:”

It was then recited that Earl Baker agrees to convey and deliver to appellee on or before December 19, 1938, all or specified parts of certain properties, consisting of large holdings in real estate in various counties in Texas, an undivided one-half of the mineral interest in a tract of forty acres of land in Aransas County, and all the grantor’s interest in “WFAA” radio stock. And in turn it was stipulated that appellee transfer to Earl Baker and wife “The Crystal Plant,” a certain city block, and 8,100 shares of common stock in Resort Hotel Company, all situated in Mineral Wells, Texas. Apparently the Resort Hotel Corporation owned the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, and this conveyance was to complete Earl Baker’s ownership of all the common stock of that corporation.

The parties then, on December 11, 1938, proceeded to execute the master agreement, dated December 9th, as well as the several conveyances therein provided for, which were dated December 10th, so that every obligation imposed in the master agreement upon the respective parties was thereby fully discharged. But, in addition to the conditions of settlement provided in the master agreement and as a part of the same transaction, appellant executed and performed the following obligations to ap-pellee: (1) Appellant executed a secured trust agreement providing for the payment of $9,000 a year to appellee during the remainder of her life; (2) executed a grant and assignment with warranty to appellee of the right to exclusive use during the remainder of her life of a certain apartment in the Baker Hotel, together with her meals, laundry, maid service and all the services and facilities usually furnished to guests of modern hotels, all without cost to appellee; (3) appellant executed a transfer of and then and there delivered to appellee the common stock of Citizens Hotel Corporation, owners of the Texas [1019]*1019Hotel in Fort Worth; (4) appellant executed an assignment and transfer to ap-pellee of a one-third interest in a promissory note of a third party for $8,000. These four obligations of appellant to -ap-pellee were not included in the master agreement and therefore rested in parol-un-til reduced to writing and delivered along with all the other written instruments provided for in the master agreement and executed in pursuance thereof, whereby a complete settlement of the reciprocal obligations of the-parties was fully consummated. Nothing further remained to be performed by either party, except appellant’s continuing obligation to pay the $9,000 annuity to appellee.

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Related

Tower Contracting Company v. Flores
294 S.W.2d 266 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1956)
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271 S.W.2d 798 (Texas Supreme Court, 1954)
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188 S.W.2d 733 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1945)

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Bluebook (online)
169 S.W.2d 1016, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baker-v-baker-texapp-1943.