La Rue Holding Co. v. Essex

45 S.W.2d 319
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 13, 1931
DocketNo. 12693
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 45 S.W.2d 319 (La Rue Holding Co. v. Essex) 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
La Rue Holding Co. v. Essex, 45 S.W.2d 319 (Tex. Ct. App. 1931).

Opinion

BUCK, J.

On July 6, 1931, Mack Watson filed a complaint and suit against Paul Vitek, alleged to be doing business as Paul Vitek, Trustee, Paul Vitek-Van Zandt-Williamson-La Rue Interests, and known as Group One Enterprise; Paul Vitek Group Two, Paul Vitek Group Three Enterprise and Vitek Combined Oil Interests, and alleged that plaintiff owned and held certificate of interest in each of the several enterprises of said defendant, set out in the plaintiff’s petition, and that the certificates issued to him by said defendant for his interest in Group One Enterprise are in possession of the defendant; the same having been sent to defendant for transfer into his Combined Oil Interests at the instance of said defendant and upon his representation that, unless such transfer was made on or before July 1, 1931, plaintiff would be charged with $50 and interest, which plaintiff advised said defendant he understood to be a threat of an assessment against his interests in said Group One, and plaintiff was thereby, over his protest, coerced into consenting to such transfer. In the petition, plaintiff set out a list of the tracts of land and leasehold interests of which defendant was alleged to be the owner, or in which he was at least interested.

Plaintiff asked that citation be issued to defendant and that he be required to appear and answer, and that plaintiff have an accounting with said defendant for each of defendant’s promoted enterprises, and that the court determine which of defendant’s group enterprises each and all the properties owned and held by said defendant in his own name or as trustee, or otherwise, belongs, and the interest owned by plaintiff in each of said enterprises, and that said properties be sold and disposed of for the benefit of plaintiff and the other holders of undivided interests in said several properties, and that the title to all the properties in the name of said defendant Vitek be decreed to be held in trust for the owners of the group to which it is found to belong, or from the proceeds of which it was acquired, and that the court find and determine [320]*320the amount of money received by said defendant from the properties and each of them and the revenue and income from the properties of each of said groups, and that defendant be required to account for the same, and that a receiver be^ appointed to take charge of all of said properties and of the revenues thereof in the hands of said defendant, and conserve the same pending the further order of the court; that such receiver take charge of all the books and records of said defendant, and that the same be audited and the true and correct status of the properties and assets of said various groups be determined, and the undivided interest of plaintiff therein be determined and fixed, as well as the. ownership of the remaining undivided interest in said property, that the same may be protected against loss and dissipation and the plaintiff have judgment for the value of his interest in said properties in the sum of $25,000.

This petition was sworn to by J. M. Willis, attorney for plaintiff.

On the day the pefition was presented, to wit, July 6,1931, Frank P. Culver, Jr., the district judge of the Seventeenth judicial district, ordered the same to be filed,' and ordered the clerk to issue notice to defendant to appear before that court on July 17, 1931, at 9 a. m., and show cause why a receiver should not be appointed as prayed for. Citation was issued on July 6, 1931, to Paul Vitek, defendant, doing business as Paul Vitek, Trustee, Paul Vitek-Van Zandt-Williamson-La Rue Interests and known as Group One Enterprise, Paul Vitek Group Two, Paul Vitek Group Three Enterprise, ahd Vitek Combined Oil Interests. On July 12, 1931, Paul Vitek was fatally burned while in and around an oil well which caught fire, was brought to Fort Worth, and died in the hospital on July 13th.

On July 16, 1931, C. A. Gilliam, of Tarrant county, was appointed receiver of all and singular the properties mentioned in plaintiff’s petition and also mentioned in the answer of certain named defendants filed in that suit on July 16th by attorneys Arthur Heeman, Hamilton & Hamilton, of Dallas, and Dexter W. Scurlock, and the receiver’s bond was fixed at $10,000, which was duly filed and approved.

The answer for the defendants, che filing of which is noted above, was sworn to by Arthur Heeman, and he stated that he was the attorney for the defendants in the above-named answer, and was familiar with the facts set forth in the answer, and that the facts stated were true. The defendants joined plaintiff in the application and prayer for appointment of the receiver. On July 16, 1931, C. S. Essex filed an intervention, setting up the fact that he held a certificate of interest in the Vitek Combined Oil Interests, and he joined in the application for a receivership. He described and set up in said plea 43 different tracts of land and interests in which he alleged the defendant, or defendants, were interested, and in which he alleged he had an interest by reason of his certificate of interest issued to him by the Combined Oil Interests. The evidence shows that Paul Vitek and S. W: Benninger and Miss E. Stoll were the sole owners and directors of the original Vitek’s interest, and the some four or five groups of interests which were subsequently incorporated as the Vitek-Van Zandt-Williamson-La Rue Interests, known as Group One Enterprise, and as Paul Vitek Group Two and as Paul Vitek Group Three Enterprise, and as the Vitek Combined Oil Interests, which were the same parties as mentioned in plaintiff’s petition and included in the answer filed by the defendants in the district court of Tarrant county.

On July 15, 1931, T. T. Word Supply Company, of Houston, instituted suit in the district court of Smith county against the La Rue Holdings Company, Williamson County Oil Purchasing Company, Williamson County Oil & Royalty Company, Combined Oil Interests, and Williamson County Petroleum Company, on an unsecured claim of indebtedness and in which suit application was made for the appointment of a receiver of all the properties of the defendants in that suit. That application was granted on the same day the suit was filed, and Earle Mayfield and John M. Stephens were appointed receivers of those properties, and, after they qualified as such, they took charge of the same. And the properties so taken by them are the same as those involved in the present suit, and for which a receiver had been theretofore appointed in this suit by the district court of Tarrant county for the Seventeenth judicial district.

Later the defendants in that suit filed a motion in the present suit praying for a dissolution of the receivership theretofore granted by the Seventeenth district court. That motion was overruled, and the present appeal has been prosecuted by the parties who filed that motion.

Opinion.

Appellants urge that, the petition of Mack Watson, who was subsequently allowed to take a nonsuit and dismissed, did not set up a cause of action as against a general demurrer.

We have carefully examined the petition and conclude that said petition does set up a cause of action as against the Paul Vitek Interests, whether held by Paul Vitek, Trustee, or otherwise, and overrule the assignment.

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Bluebook (online)
45 S.W.2d 319, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/la-rue-holding-co-v-essex-texapp-1931.