Beavers v. Beavers

675 S.W.2d 296, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6190
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 17, 1984
Docket05-82-01341-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 675 S.W.2d 296 (Beavers v. Beavers) 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
Beavers v. Beavers, 675 S.W.2d 296, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6190 (Tex. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

ROWE, Justice.

In this divorce case, Mr. Beavers complains that the property division made by the court sitting without a jury is not just and right as required by TEX.FAM.CODE ANN. § 3.63 (Vernon Supp.1984). Mr. Beavers contends that the trial judge abused his discretion: (1) by offsetting reimbursement claims held by the community against each spouse’s separate estate; (2) by mischaracterizing real property acquired from Mrs. Beavers’ mother, (3) by over-valuing restricted stock held by the community in Great West Energy, Inc., and *298 (4) by failing to grant him reasonable terms for payment of the money judgment awarded Mrs. Beavers in lieu of a direct allocation of community assets to her. Mr. Beavers also assigns as error the late filing of supplemental findings of fact and conclusions of law and the trial court’s award of attorney’s fees against him in the event of his default on payments due Mrs. Beavers under the money judgment. For reasons given below, we find no abuse of discretion by the trial judge in the property division. While the last two mentioned assignments do concern patent errors by the trial judge, the first is harmless and the second can be remedied without retrial. Accordingly, we reform the judgment to eliminate the complained of award of attorney’s fees, and as so reformed we affirm.

The abuse of discretion by the trial judge condemned by Mr. Beavers in his first point of error concerns an alleged failure to properly account for any enhanced value of the spouses’ separate estates attributable to the community estate. The real property on Lane Street in Irving, Texas, was admittedly the separate property of Mrs. Beavers. All the stock in Vaughn’s Furniture and Appliance Company was admittedly the separate property of Mr. Beavers. While the undisputed evidence disclosed that a community contribution of assets had enhanced the value of the Lane Street property, the extent of enhancement was disputed. While there was evidence that considerable community time, toil and effort had been expended in the operation of Vaughn’s furniture business, whether the community had already been adequately compensated and whether any enhancement had resulted were disputed. The trial judge concluded that the community claim for reimbursement from the Lane Street property was approximately equal to the community claim for reimbursement from Vaughn’s and excluded further consideration of these claims in dividing the community property. Under the circumstances shown of record, we find that this treatment was appropriate.

Both the pleadings and the admissible evidence were sufficient to authorize the court below, as the trier of facts, to give the same approximate values to the parties’ reimbursement claims and therefore offset them one against the other. Discrepancies in the evidence as to community assets contributed to improve the Lane Street property ranged from a low of $21,-472.00 (Mrs. Beavers) to a high of $86,-667.20 (Mr. Beavers) with a top enhancement value of $62,500.00. A valuation of the uncompensated time, toil and effort expended by the community to enhance the value of the stock in Vaughn’s, within a comparable range, was supported by probative evidence. The stock had risen from a purchase price before marriage of $13,-975.00 to a book value of $49,000.00 at the dissolution of the marriage. Although by that time the company had ceased doing business because of financial difficulties, the full-time efforts which Mr. Beavers had devoted to the company prior to cessation of business had been solely responsible for its earlier profitability. During the two years for which income tax returns were made available, corporate profits, after payment of salaries and other remunerations, totaled over $60,000. By offsetting these claims, the trial judge impliedly found each to be worth something between $25,000 to $35,000, a valuation supported by the evidence. Even though the opinions in Vallone v. Vallone, 644 S.W.2d 455 (Tex.1982), and Jensen v. Jensen, 665 S.W.2d 107 (Tex.1984), had not been rendered prior to the entry of judgment in this case, we are obliged to presume that the trial judge made his property division upon the proper legal basis. McGarraugh v. McGarraugh, 177 S.W.2d 296 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1943, writ dism’d). Accordingly, we find no justification in the record for a retrial of the reimbursement issues.

In his second point of error Mr. Beavers complains about the trial court’s finding that certain real estate in Hunt County, Texas, known as the Royce City property had been acquired by Mrs. Beavers by gift, devise and descent and thus *299 was her separate property. Undisputedly this property had belonged to Mrs. Beavers’ mother until shortly before her death. Dispute existed as to whether an installment note “sale” by the mother to Mr. and Mrs. Beavers was merely a sham designed to appease an elderly woman too proud to accept charity from her children. After four monthly payments had been made on the vendor’s lien note evidencing the “purchase price” payable by the community, the remaining principal balance was effectively cancelled by the terms of the mother’s will. Further, without objection, extrinsic evidence was introduced to show that the net value to the community of any interest in this property was nominal at best. From the record pertinent to this matter we find sufficient justification for affirmance of the trial court’s property division either because the trial court’s characterization of this property has adequate support in the record or because Mr. Beavers has failed to establish on appeal that the trial court probably would have made a different division if this property had been properly characterized as community, which burden was his under Smith v. Smith, 620 S.W.2d 619 (Tex.Civ.App. — Dallas 1981, no writ) (opinion on motion for rehearing). Mr. Beavers’ second point of error is overruled.

Mr. Beavers’ third point of error addresses the proper valuation to be placed on the community one-third interest in all outstanding stock of Great West Energy, Inc. The valuation problem arises because the sale of these shares is restricted by a requirement that they be offered first to other shareholders at book value. Experts from both parties testified that essentially because of this restriction, the market value of the stock was zero. This does not mean, however, that the trial judge erred in assigning a value of $170,000.00 to the stock for the purpose of making an equitable division of the community property. While market value is usually the best evidence of the value of the personal property, in the absence of a market value, the actual value of the property to the owner may be shown. Bryant v. Stohn, 260 S.W.2d 77, 83 (Tex.Civ.App. — Dallas 1953, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Ft. Worth and D.C. Railway v. Hapgood, 210 S.W. 969 (Tex.Civ.App.— Amarillo 1919, no writ). There is expert testimony from Mrs. Beavers’ witness that, based on the value of the assets of the company, a one-third interest would be worth as much as $395,850.00. Even according to Mr.

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675 S.W.2d 296, 1984 Tex. App. LEXIS 6190, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beavers-v-beavers-texapp-1984.