Guilott v. Guilott

361 So. 2d 1271
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedSeptember 1, 1978
Docket6494
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 361 So. 2d 1271 (Guilott v. Guilott) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Guilott v. Guilott, 361 So. 2d 1271 (La. Ct. App. 1978).

Opinion

361 So.2d 1271 (1978)

Gloria Ann GUILOTT, Plaintiff and Appellee,
v.
Clyde B. GUILOTT, Defendant and Appellant.

No. 6494.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

June 14, 1978.
Writ Refused September 1, 1978.

*1273 Camp, Carmouche, Palmer, Carwile & Barsh, Karl E. Boellert, Lake Charles, for defendant and appellant.

Victor A. Sachse, Baton Rouge, W. Ellis Bond, Lake Charles, for plaintiff and appellee.

Before CULPEPPER, DOMENGEAUX, WATSON, GUIDRY and FORET, JJ.

CULPEPPER, Judge.

This is a suit to partition the community of acquets and gains formerly existing between the plaintiff and the defendant. The plaintiff wife also seeks the restitution of her paraphernal property and the fruits thereof. When the case was previously before us, 326 So.2d 551 (3rd Cir. 1976), we held as a matter of law that the wife was not entitled to restitution of the fruits of her paraphernal property, which fruits consisted mostly of earnings from her 5% interest in a partnership. We remanded the case for a new trial on all other issues.

When the case was retried, counsel for both parties agreed at the outset that the stipulation entered into during the first trial as to the commingling of the wife's separate funds with community funds, which stipulation this court found to be ambiguous, must be disregarded. Thus, the trial was conducted and the case decided as if that stipulation had never been made.

At the new trial, further evidence was introduced to identify what was community property and what was the separate paraphernal property of the wife. But the central issue was to determine whether the earnings attributable to the wife's 5% interest in the partnership, but not distributed in cash by the partnership to the wife, should be classified as paraphernal property, to which the wife is entitled to restitution, or as fruits, to which she is not entitled to restitution. On this central issue, the district judge held that only the earnings of the partnership which were actually distributed to her in cash were "fruits" of the wife's paraphernal interest in the partnership. The court held that the earnings which were not distributed and remained in the wife's partnership drawing account were not fruits. Also, the court held that certain "in kind" distributions of corporate stock and municipal bonds to the wife were not fruits.

The defendant husband has appealed, urging three specifications of error: (1) The trial court erred in declaring only the cash distributions or revenues of a paraphernal, limited partnership interest to be community property and in classifying the non-cash revenues as paraphernal property. (2) The trial court erred in accepting the wife's uncorroborated testimony that checks drawn by a partnership in which she had an interest constituted donations of cash as her paraphernal property, in view of the legal presumption that all property acquired during the marriage is community property. (3) The trial court erred in ordering the restitution by the husband of funds received by the wife and never delivered to the husband.

PARTNERSHIP EARNINGS

In his written reasons for judgment, the trial judge correctly finds that during the years 1957 through 1969 Mrs. Guilott received cash distributions from the partnership totaling $122,787.59. The judge held these must be considered fruits which were community property and are not subject to restitution. However, the district court held that the remaining distributions by the partnership to the wife were not "fruits", but, instead, were the increase or enhancement in value of the wife's interest in the partnership, and therefore remained her separate and paraphernal property and did not fall into the community.

*1274 Briefly, the pertinent facts are that in 1956 the wife's father, Mr. Robert Barber, donated to her a 5% interest in a partnership known as Barber Bros. Company, a large construction firm. Mrs. Guilott was an in commendam partner. In December of 1959, the general partners decided to form a new corporation named Barber Bros. Contracting Company, Inc. The new corporation was capitalized with $92,000 of partnership cash assets debited to the drawing account of each partner in proportion to his interest in the partnership. Mrs. Guilott received 50 shares of the capital stock ($100 par value) of the corporation in return for $5,000 debited to her partnership drawing account. Also in 1959 the partnership acquired 1,500 shares of this stock in return for the transfer to the corporation of certain equipment. In 1967 the partnership transferred these 1,500 shares to the partners on the basis of three shares for each share already owned, so Mrs. Guilott received 150 shares, making her total 200 shares. In 1969 the partnership again transferred shares of the stock to the partners, and Mrs. Guilott received 300 shares with a book value of $7,500. Mrs. Guilott's drawing account in the partnership was debited $7,500 in June of 1969 to pay for these 300 shares. The net result is that Mrs. Guilott received a total of 500 shares of the capital stock of the Barber Bros. Contracting Company, Inc. 350 shares were paid for by debiting her partnership drawing account, the same account from which she drew $122,787.59 in cash over the years 1957 through 1969. The remaining 150 shares were transferred to her by the partnership in 1967 as her portion of the 1,500 shares which were received by the partnership in 1959 in consideration of the transfer by the partnership to the corporation of certain equipment.

In January of 1969, Mrs. Guilott sold to the corporation her 500 shares of stock for a total consideration of $156,242.75, of which $39,060.94 was paid in cash, and the balance was represented by a note for the principal sum of $117,182.81, bearing interest at the rate of 4% per annum, and payable in three annual installments of $39,064.94 each.

The evidence does not show what happened to all of the cash realized from the sale of this stock. Mrs. Guilott testified some of it was deposited in a trust account at the Lakeside National Bank in Lake Charles, designated as the "C. E. Guilott Personal Trust". This trust was created on February 9, 1971, and was executed by both plaintiff and defendant in authentic form. It was funded with an initial cash contribution of $60,000. In this agreement the parties considered the proceeds of the stock sale to be community property, because the trust instrument expressly declares: "The property originally placed in trust is community property of the community of acquets and gains existing between the settlors and it shall retain that character." The testimony also shows that an additional $84,656.58 was deposited during the life of the trust. Although the exact origin of these additional funds is not clear from the evidence, the wife testified they came from the stock sale. It is noteworthy that the trust instrument also contains the following language: "If any property is later delivered to the trustee to be held under this act, the settlor delivering it shall identify it either as separate property of that settlor or as community property." There is no evidence offered that any identification as community or separate property was ever made as to these later deposits.

In his written reasons, the trial judge gave the following rationale for holding that only the cash distributions by the partnership to the wife were fruits which fell into the community:

"The initial interest in the partnership was plaintiff's separate property, having been donated to her by her father.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
361 So. 2d 1271, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guilott-v-guilott-lactapp-1978.