Hansen v. Hansen

16 Pa. D. & C.5th 241
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Delaware County
DecidedAugust 31, 2010
Docketno. 03-07117
StatusPublished

This text of 16 Pa. D. & C.5th 241 (Hansen v. Hansen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Delaware County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hansen v. Hansen, 16 Pa. D. & C.5th 241 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2010).

Opinion

BURR, J,

The defendant, Stuart R. Hansen, appeals from this court’s order granting supplementary relief to the plaintiff, Roslyn K. Hansen, in aid of execution on the judgment she lawfully obtained pursuant to a verdict from this court on April 21, 2006 following a non-jury trial in an action to obtain specific enforcement of a buy/sell provision of a 1995 amended partnership agreement between the defendant and his late brother, plaintiff’s deceased husband, George C. Hansen Jr. The amended partnership agreement required the brothers to purchase the survivor’s 50 percent in the partnership upon one or the other’s death, and when the defendant refused to tender the purchase price of $1,000,000, i.e., the value of an insurance policy maintained for that purpose, to the plaintiff, George C. Hansen’s widow and executrix of his estate, she sued for specific performance of the buy/sell agreement.

To this date, the defendant has refused to pay the entirety of this judgment, which amounted to $1,000,000 less certain set-offs to cover outstanding debts owed by George Hansen to the company, plus interest dating from approximately 60 days from the date of his death.

The defendant’s refusal to pay the remainder of the judgment owed to the plaintiff remains puzzling in the face of trial testimony that the company was solvent and brought in millions of dollars yearly in profit, as well as disturbing, given post-trial discovery testimony obtained in aid of execution which tends to establish that much of [243]*243the company’s present day income is being paid to the defendant as “wages and salary.” The latter evidence raises an inference of possible fraudulent transfer of those funds in order to prevent the plaintiff from collecting her lawfully obtained recompense for her husband’s one-half share in the defendant, The Hansen Paper Company Inc.

This court’s verdict rested on a trial record that is replete with testimony from the defendant that he considered the buy/sell provision of the 1995 agreement null and void even before George Hansen’s death based on debts the latter had incurred with and on behalf of the company, yet defendant never attempted to legally dissolve the partnership pursuant to express terms of the agreement. The record adduces that George Hansen was in the process of paying down his share of that debt at the time of his death, and that the defendant’s reluctance to eject his brother from the business was based on a desire to keep his brother’s contributions coming into the company until it had been fully recompensed for the losses. The defendant also has repeatedly indicated that his actions in refusing to honor the buy/sell provision after his brother’s death and assuming the company’s proceeds entirely for himself and his wife were derived from his own interpretation of the “law of the partnership,” and with no reference whatsoever to, nor any regard for, the tenets and requirements the business partnership law of this Commonwealth. The court concluded that the defendant was required to implement the buy/sell provision of the agreement which necessitated the purchase of George Hansen’s share of the business from the plaintiff. It is equally certain under the law that the defendant had no right or power to convey George Hansen’s [244]*24450 percent share therein to his wife, Sue Hansen, as is now here alleged, prior to acquiring its ownership from the plaintiff.

The following references, paragraphs 1 through 21, inclusive, excerpted from this court’s opinion in Hansen v. Hansen, 93 Del. 342 (2006), following the appeal from the denial of the parties’ post-verdict motions are both salient and supportive of the foregoing conclusions.1

(1) George C. Hansen Jr. suffered a heart attack and died on August 6, 2001. At the time of his death, he owned a 50 percent share of The Hansen Paper Company (the company), a Pennsylvania general partnership which brokered the sale of paper, that was headquartered at 13 E. Central Ave., Paoli, PA. The defendant, Stuart Hansen, George’s brother, owned the other 50 percent interest in the company, which, pursuant to further amendment to the 1995 amended partnership agreement (the agreement) that was executed by the brothers on November 28, 2000 (the amendment), he controlled managerially at the time of George’s death. The defendant, Sue G. Hansen, is Stuart Hansen’s wife. The defendant, The Hansen Paper Company Inc., (the corporation), is a Pennsylvania corporation formed by the defendants, Stuart and Sue Hansen, by the entireties, on January 7, 2002 to succeed the company in the paper brokerage business, and is also headquartered at 13 E. Central Avenue, Paoli, PA. (Id., p. 343.)

[245]*245(2) The plaintiff, Roslyn Hansen, her late husband’s designated sole beneficiary, fiduciary, and executrix of his estate, received letters of administration on August 27,2001 and, on September 24,2001, tendered her husband’s 50 percent share in the company to the defendant, Stuart Hansen for purchase. (Trial exhibits P-6, P-7.) The agreement called for the surviving partner to purchase the deceased’s half interest and to fund the purchase by way of an insurance policy on the other’s life at an agreed upon price. At the time of George Hansen’s death, pursuant to express terms of the brothers’ agreement, their respective half shares in the company were valued at $1,000,000 each. When the defendant, Stuart Hansen, refused to honor the buy/sell provision of the partnership agreement and kept the insurance proceeds for the benefit of himself, his family and his new corporation, the plaintiff filed the instant complaint seeking judgment against Stuart R. and Sue G. Hansen in the amount of $ 1,000,000 on the subject insurance proceeds and a return of a $500,000 payment she had made to extinguish loans she and her husband had acquired from Bryn Mawr Trust for infusion of capital into the company following a business loss attributed to George from doing business with an entity known as the Edwards Paper Company. (Id, pp. 343-344.)

(3) Plaintiff pleaded that these damages be awarded in her alternative capacities as an individual, or as her husband’s representative, or as both. The grounds alleged for the requested relief were that the defendant, Stuart Hansen, had breached the buy/sell provision of the partnership agreement by retaining the proceeds from the insurance purchased for the purpose of acquiring George’s share of the partnership. Plaintiff alleged fur[246]*246ther that, in conjunction and conspiracy with his wife, the defendant, Sue Hansen, the defendant initially authorized the payment of the insurance proceeds to Bryn Mawr Trust Company to pay off the $500,000 in loans they had also obtained from the bank to cover the Edwards loss. Plaintiff contended that defendant applied the remainder of the insurance proceeds to the company’s line of credit and converted the sums in excess thereof to pay for their personal needs and expenses. (Id., p. 344.)

(4) Plaintiff further alleged that the defendants converted the assets of the partnership into the defendant corporation, for which articles of incorporation had been filed on January 7,2002, for the purpose of placing them out of plaintiff’s reach and defrauding her from her rights to the insurance proceeds and to her husband’s share in the company’s assets, income and profits.2

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Bluebook (online)
16 Pa. D. & C.5th 241, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hansen-v-hansen-pactcompldelawa-2010.