Crook v. Williams Drug Co., Inc.

558 S.W.2d 500, 1977 Tex. App. LEXIS 3621
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 27, 1977
Docket970
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 558 S.W.2d 500 (Crook v. Williams Drug Co., Inc.) 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
Crook v. Williams Drug Co., Inc., 558 S.W.2d 500, 1977 Tex. App. LEXIS 3621 (Tex. Ct. App. 1977).

Opinion

MOORE, Justice.

This is a suit by Herbert Crook, the statutory Receiver for two domestic insurance companies, Dealers National Insurance Company (Dealers) and Liberty Universal Insurance Company (Liberty), seeking damages or, in the alternative, cancellation of certain transactions allegedly having caused the two insurance companies to become insolvent and thus to be placed in receivership. Named as a defendant was Harold Simmons, individually, and as trustee of a family trust which controlled a conglomerate empire of drug and finance companies, including defendants Contran Corporation, Madigan Corporation and Williams Drug Company, which latter two corporations in turn owned respective controlling interests in Dealers and Liberty. Also named as a defendant was Glenn Simmons, the brother of Harold Simmons.

The Receiver alleged that in November 1969 Harold Simmons and the other defendants instigated a corporate reorganization of Dealers and Liberty consisting of a series of financial transactions herein referred to as the “November Transactions,” in which Dealers and Liberty were caused to exchange a vast amount of stocks and other assets with the corporate defendants. Receiver alleged that these transactions proximately led to Dealers’ and Liberty’s insolvency. As grounds for a cause of action based on breach of fiduciary duty, Receiver alleged that the November Transactions were unfair to both Dealers and Liberty because the stocks and other assets received by them in the course of the transactions were worthless, and as such amounted to a fraud upon their respective creditors and policyholders. Receiver prayed for damages in excess of $10,000,000.00, together with exemplary damages, and in the alternative for a rescission of the November Transactions.

In response to Special Issues Nos. 1 and 2, 1 the jury found that the November Transactions were fair to Dealers and Liberty in every respect. Based on these findings, as well as numerous other findings, the trial court entered a take-nothing judgment against the Receiver from which he perfected this appeal.

We affirm.

ANSWER: They were.”

*502 The record is voluminous, consisting of over 7,500 pages of testimony and over a thousand exhibits. A detailed statement of all the facts would neither be possible nor appropriate. Prior to discussing the various points of error brought by the Receiver, we will undertake to outline the posture of the defendants and the two insurance companies as they existed before the November Transactions, and then set forth the evidence showing how and why the November Transactions were consummated.

The record reveals that defendant, Harold Simmons, commenced in business in 1961 after purchasing a drug store in Dallas, Texas. In 1966 he purchased the Williams Drug Company in Waco, Texas, which owned seven drug stores. In 1967 he acquired the Mading, Dugan and Simpson drug store chains. In 1969 Simmons’ Mad-ing-Dugan Company (later changed to Ma-digan) acquired the Ward drug store chain, consisting of thirty-six stores. As a result of the acquisitions, Mr. Simmons’ drug business rapidly grew from a family drug store to a chain of ninety-five stores. A controlling interest in each of the corporate entities was owned by the Harold Simmons Family Trust with Harold Simmons as trustee.

In the fall of 1967 Dealers National Insurance was a small fire and casualty company situated in Dallas, Texas. At the suggestion of Harry P. Stuth, a Dallas insurance man, and his associate Charles Caldwell, Mr. Simmons became interested in purchasing Dealers. Shortly thereafter the management of the Mading-Dugan drug chain acquired 83 percent of Dealers for $465,000.00. Mr. Stuth became president and chief operating officer and Harold Simmons, his brother Glenn Simmons, Stuth and Caldwell were made directors. In the year following the acquisition, Stuth gave the directors glowing reports on the progress of the company which led them to follow his recommendation to purchase another insurance company, Liberty Universal, in Forth Worth, Texas.

In the spring of 1968, Mr. Stuth began negotiating with Liberty’s president, Hunter McLean, who was a former commissioner of the Texas State Board of Insurance and a majority stockholder of Liberty Universal. Thereafter, in June 1968, upon Stuth’s recommendation, Dealers acquired 95 percent of the stock of Liberty for $1,138,000.00. Despite what its previous owner and the company books and records might have disclosed to Mr. Stuth, the evidence shows that shortly after the purchase the State Insurance Board made an examination of the company’s financial condition and found that at the time it was acquired it should have been put in liquidation. Thereafter the new management injected new capital into the company which saved it from insolvency.

Soon after Dealers and Liberty had been acquired by the Simmons interest, their respective boards of directors sold most of the securities held in their securities portfolio and reinvested the proceeds in the stocks and securities of other corporations controlled by Simmons. As a result, the vast majority of the assets of the two insurance companies consisted of stocks and securities of the Simmons companies.

In the latter part of 1968, Mr. Simmons and the management of Mading-Dugan became interested in acquiring an interest in Texas Consumer Finance Corporation (TCFC), a multi-state consumer loan business with assets of $40,000,000.00 and lines of credit with major banks throughout the country. In late 1968 Dealers and Liberty, subsidiaries of Mading-Dugan, acquired thirty-five percent of the stock of TCFC.

In December 1968, the management of Mading-Dugan and the management of TCFC cooperated in forming a holding company, called Contran Corporation, to acquire the full ownership of TCFC, and ultimately the entire Mading-Dugan drug store chain. In early 1969 a share for share tender offer was made by Contran with the shareholders of TCFC. Consequently, Dealers and Liberty, which owned 35 percent of TCFC stock, acquired shares in Contran.

On November 23,1969, shortly before the November Transactions which form the basis of the present suit, the corporate struc *503 ture of the Simmons family trust and its ownership of the other corporations are depicted by the following chart:

Harold Simmons served as president and director of Williams, Madigan and Contran, and his brother Glenn served as director of each of the corporations and vice-president of Madigan and Contran. Glenn Simmons served as president and director of both Dealers and Liberty, while Harold Simmons served as board chairman and director until he resigned shortly before the November Transactions. TCFC’s Board of Directors consisted of Harold Simmons, Glenn Simmons and a Wallace Jay, President.

In May 1969 Glenn Simmons became concerned that Stuth’s personal expenses at Dealers were excessive. Accordingly, an outside auditing firm was called in to conduct a special investigation of Stuth’s expenses. The investigation not only disclosed unauthorized cash advances from Dealers to Stuth, but also revealed that, rather than operating at a profit as reported by Stuth, Dealers had incurred a substantial net loss for the year ending April 30, 1969.

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Bluebook (online)
558 S.W.2d 500, 1977 Tex. App. LEXIS 3621, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crook-v-williams-drug-co-inc-texapp-1977.