Ballard v. Ballard

24 So. 2d 335, 199 Miss. 316, 1946 Miss. LEXIS 200
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 14, 1946
DocketNo. 35991.
StatusPublished

This text of 24 So. 2d 335 (Ballard v. Ballard) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ballard v. Ballard, 24 So. 2d 335, 199 Miss. 316, 1946 Miss. LEXIS 200 (Mich. 1946).

Opinion

L. A. Smith, Sr., J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Appellant, as complainant, filed her original bill in tbe Chancery Court of Lee County against appellees, Walter E. Ballard and the Tupelo Floral Corporation, as defendants, praying for separate support and maintenance from appellee Ballard and also for an injunction restraining him “from leaving the jurisdiction of this court for the purpose of obtaining a divorce from the complainant or in any manner affecting the rights of complainant either as to her right to alimony or as to a divorce from complainant or in any other manner as to the marital status of complainant and Walter E. Ballard in any other court than the Chancery Court of Lee County, Mississippi, the domicile of the marital status of complainant and defendant and the present domicile of each of said parties.” The prayer of the bill was also, as against both appellees, the establishment of “the right of complainant to the stock in the Tupelo Floral Corporation held by defendant, Walter E. Ballard and declaring complainant to be the equitable owner thereof as being held in trust for her by said defendant,- and directing that transfer of said stock be made to said complainant.”

Appellees filed an answer putting in ■ controversy the issues raised by the original bill, and appellee Ballard filed a cross-bill seeking a divorce from appellant on grounds therein alleged. Objection was not pressed by appellees against the above procedure and they prosecuted no cross-appeal.

When the suit came on for trial, appellee Ballard moved the court for leave to dismisss this cross-bill without prejudice. To this, the appellant objected. After duly considering the matter, the trial court entered an order that “such motion be sustained and said cross-bill be and same is dismissed insofar as same applies to a claim for divorce. ’ ’ The suit was thereupon tried on bill, answer and *322 proof, and at its conclusion a final decree was entered denying complainant a resulting trust in ninety-seven shares of stock in the Tupelo Floral Corporation standing in the name of appellee Ballard; holding that appellee Ballard was without legal grounds for separation from appellant, his wife, and owed her the legal duty of permanent support and maintenance, and award was accordingly made to her for same and for solicitor’s fees; and “to insure the complainant the full protection of this decree, and to prevent the sale or transfer of the interest of the defendant, Walter E. Ballard, or the defendant, Tupelo Floral Corporation,” a lien was fixed upon all of the stock owned by Ballard in the Tupelo Floral Corporation and upon the property owned individually by him; the prayer for the injunctive relief sought was denied.

From those parts of this decree denying appellant’s prayer that she be declared the owner of the stock in the Tupelo Floral Corporation in the name of Walter E. Ballard, and denying that it was in equity her property, and refusing to enter a decree directing its transfer to appellant as the true and equitable owner thereof, and denying her prayer for an injunction against him suing her for divorce in any other jurisdiction, an appeal here was granted appellant without prejudice to her right to receive the allowances for separate support and maintenance and solicitor’s fees.

The main controversy on the merits is on the issue as to . the ninety-seven shares of stock standing in the name of appellee Ballard in the Tupelo Floral Corporation, which appellant claims in equity is her property by virtue of a resulting trust. The parties were married in 1912, and they have a son twenty-four years of age who is in the Army. The parties lived together until August 1943, when appellee Ballard left appellant under circumstances which the chancery court held were no justification for leaving his wife, and in which we concur, and awarded her-separate maintenance and solicitors’s fees, and no appeal was taken from that part of the final decree either by appellant or appellee Ballard. At the time of the sep *323 aration, appellee Ballard had threatened to go to Beno, Nevada, and later repeated the threat to go to Beno or Arkansas, if she resisted his desire for a divorce.

There was in 1922 a copartnership in the City of Tnpelo composed of a man named Mabry and a man named Smith, trading under the name of Tupelo Moral Company. Appellee Ballard conceived the idea of purchasing the interest of Smith therein, which was for sale, and did so by paying so much in cash and executing his note for the balance. At the time, his wife had in the Bank of Tupelo on time deposit $3,708.70, consisting of $2,400 given her by her mother, with accretions of interest. He suggested to her that he would have to pay the bank eight per cent interest for a loan from it, and that if she would lend this money to him so he could discharge his obligation, he would pay her the same rate of interest she was receiving from the bank. To this, she assented. This is what he says occurred. On the contrary, she says, that having confidence in him, she entrusted the money to him for investment and did not lend it to him. However, in her testimony, when 'asked if she expected him to repay it, she replied that she did in a round-about way in the household expenses and in the business. This was an issue of fact, which we think was rightly adjudged by the chancery court against appellant.

According to the evidence, it seems that appellee Ballard repaid this amount, principal and interest, by making various deposits to her account in the Bank of Tupelo between October 23, 1925, and July 26, 1932. She loaned him $3,700 in 1922, which left to her credit $8.70, and within the period mentioned the account to her credit was built up from that sum to $6,234.53, which, he and she both say, was largely made up of sums he deposited there to her credit. These deposits by him, after excluding some interest, the sums she deposited, and some withdrawals, were more than sufficient to repay the loan.

In 1931, appellee’s copartner in the Tupelo Floral Company, Mabry, died. The firm was heavily in debt, and litigation was impending between appellee Ballard and *324 the widow of his deceased partner Mabry. The difficulties were resolved apparently by his assumption of all of the debts of the copartnership, both to the bank of more than $20,000, and to others of several thousand dollars more. In 1933, affairs became quite difficult with the floral business, and the personal financial affairs of appellee Ballard. In March 1934, Ballard went into voluntary bankruptcy. In September 1933, the Bank of Tupelo sold the assets of the Tupelo Floral Company for indebtedness to the bank to a director of the bank named Baker. Baker, for $1 and other valuable considerations, conveyed it to appellant, who executed a trust deed for $8,760' on the same property for the benefit of the bank. A corporation called the Tupelo Floral Corporation was chartered in August 1933. Its capital stock was $10,000, and the par value of its shares was $100 each. Its entire assets consisted of the properties of the copartnership, passing through Baker to appellant, and through her by conveyance to the corporation in February 1934. After the corporation was formed, appellant, as stated, conveyed these same properties to the corporation, of which she became president and appellee Ballard assistant-treasurer.

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Bluebook (online)
24 So. 2d 335, 199 Miss. 316, 1946 Miss. LEXIS 200, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ballard-v-ballard-miss-1946.