Garver v. First National Bank of Canadian

432 S.W.2d 745, 31 Oil & Gas Rep. 243, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2785
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 23, 1968
DocketNo. 7871
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 432 S.W.2d 745 (Garver v. First National Bank of Canadian) 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
Garver v. First National Bank of Canadian, 432 S.W.2d 745, 31 Oil & Gas Rep. 243, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2785 (Tex. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinion

NORTHCUTT, Justice.

This is a summary judgment case. Vash-ti Hoover Garver joined by her husband, T. L. Garver, filed a suit against the First National Bank of Canadian seeking recovery of an undivided one-fourth of the proceeds from delay rentals on oil and gas leases which had been forwarded from various oil companies to the bank as depository for the benefit of Mrs. Garver, her sister Louise Hoover and her two brothers, Dan B. Hoover and Ed H. Hoover, Jr., being all the children of H. E. Hoover and wife, Bragg Winsett Hoover.

The Sinclair delay rentals were payable to the four children (including their respective spouses) jointly; Union Oil delay rentals were payable to them “as a group”; others were to the “credit of the parties shown above”, “persons named” or “all the parties”. Until July, 1964, the bank was never requested by any of the parties to deposit the delay rentals to any account except the Hoover Ranch Account, other than upon certain specified occasions to the Hoover Estate Account and the Estate Tax Account.

H. E. Hoover died in 1945 and Mrs. Bragg Hoover in 1952, each leaving their sons just named as independent executors of their estates without bond. The only other children they left surviving them were the two daughters just named. The defendant below will be referred to hereafter as appellee or as the bank. Plaintiffs below will be referred to as appellants or by their names.

After oral depositions were taken of H. S. Wilbur, Sr., Chairman of the Board of Directors of the bank; Harry Wilbur, Jr., President of the bank and all the Hoover heirs except Louise Hoover, motions for summary judgment were filed by both appellants and appellee. In support of such motion by appellee both of the bank officers named made affidavits. J. D. Crow, attorney for appellants, made an affidavit in support of his client’s motion for summary judgment. Additionally, the record shows appellants’ original petition and amended original petition and supplemental petition and their reply to the bank's motion for summary judgment. Following the filing of all such pleadings, depositions, affidavits and motions the court, after a hearing on the same, sustained the appellee’s motion for summary judgment and denied appellants’ motion. From the order overruling appellants’ motion for summary judgment appellants perfected this appeal.

[747]*747It is our duty to affirm the judgment of the trial court if, in view of the entire record, it may be done on any applicable legal theory. Construction & General Labor Union, Local No. 688 v. Stephenson, 148 Tex. 434, 225 S.W.2d 958; Gulf Land Co. v. Atlantic Refining Co., 134 Tex. 59, 131 S.W.2d 73. In the last cited case the Court said “ * * * that an appellate court will sustain the judgment of a trial court if it is correct on any theory of law applicable in the case, and that regardless of whether the trial court gives the correct legal reason for the judgment he enters, or whether he gives any reason at all”. See also Schenker v. City of San Antonio, Tex.Civ.App., 369 S.W.2d 626 (ref’d n. r. e.); Golden State Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Adams, Tex.Civ.App., 340 S.W. 2d 77 (n. w. h.) ; Flores v. Logan, Tex.Civ.App., 307 S.W.2d 813 (n. r. e.); Lance v. City of Mission, Tex.Civ.App., 308 S.W.2d 546 (n. r. e.).

Dan Hoover and Ed Hoover first qualified as independent executors of the estate of their father in 1945. They also qualified in the same capacity of their mother’s estate following her death. Though Mrs. Garver testified in the deposition she was certain no one was ever appointed independent executor of H. E. Hoover Estate or the Bragg Hoover Estate, the probate records in evidence refute her testimony and leave such testimony without merit. She never made any complaint to the bank of the manner in which it carried the accounts of the estates until 1964. During at least 15 years of that period she was accepting checks from Dan and Ed drawn on the Ranch Account in which the delay rentals were deposited. For 19 years the Ranch Account received all income including the delay rentals without complaint by appellants.

The uncontradicted bank records show it has received a total of $127,808.46 in delay rentals from 1949 for the four heirs. The record is also uncontradicted that the funds were deposited in the manner directed by Dan and Ed. Appellants’ one-fourth would have been $31,952.12. From 1955 to 1963 the bank paid out $96,939.08 to appellants from such account. It is undisputed that the Ranch Account was a joint operating account from which Dan and Ed also paid operating expenses upon thousands of acres of farm and ranch land.

In Mrs. Garver’s deposition she admitted the checks she received from 1945 were drawn on the Ranch Account and signed by Dan and Ed; that she never had her mother and father’s estate withdrawn from administration; that she knew nothing about the manner or method by which Dan and Ed managed the estate; though she knew signature cards authorized the bank to honor checks, she did not know the names appearing on the signature cards of the estate account and never asked the bank to put her name on such cards; that in 1963 she hired an auditor to audit the books of the estate and her brothers paid her part of the audit fee; she did not tell the bank to handle the delay rentals any differently nor notify it that Dan and Ed did not have any authority to handle the estate as they did until July 9, 1964; that she never advised the bank until July, 1964, not to put the delay rentals money in the Ranch Account and what actually happened was that the bank did what Dan and Ed told it to do for 19 years; that the details of handling all the various estate interests were under the control of her brothers from 1945 to 1964 with her knowledge; that she never personally paid any of the expenses incident to handling the estate, consisting of several thousand acres of land; and that her share of the money to which she was entitled could not be determined without an audit of the books of the estates which were kept by Dan and Ed. She also admitted:

“Q. What your real complaint here is, isn’t it, Mrs. Garver, that Dan and Ed * * *
A. Dan in particular.
[748]*748Q. * * * Dan in particular, has not paid you the money you feel he should have paid you?
A. Now, you are getting where I can understand and that is what I am looking for.
Q. That is your real complaint?
A. That is my complaint, absolutely.”

Both Dan and Ed Hoover testified by depositions that they administered the estates of their father and mother, and in their capacities as independent executors changed the H. E. Hoover Grain Account to the H. E. Hoover Ranch Account and opened other banking accounts with appel-lee. While acting in that capacity the two sons certainly had the authority to manage and handle the business affairs of the estates. Sec. 145, Probate Code.

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Bluebook (online)
432 S.W.2d 745, 31 Oil & Gas Rep. 243, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2785, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/garver-v-first-national-bank-of-canadian-texapp-1968.