Morris v. Times Review Pub. Co.

143 S.W.2d 1007
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 10, 1940
DocketNo. 11049
StatusPublished

This text of 143 S.W.2d 1007 (Morris v. Times Review Pub. Co.) 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
Morris v. Times Review Pub. Co., 143 S.W.2d 1007 (Tex. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

This appeal is from a judgment of the District Court of Titus County, entered upon a jury’s verdict in answer to one. special issue submitted, wherein the appellant, Harold J. Morris, was denied any recovery against the appellees — Times Review Publishing Company] a corporation, of which G. W. Cross, Jack Cross, and Cecil Cross were president, vice president, and secretary-treasurer, respectively, as well as the sole directors, and against such three named persons as individuals — in his suit against them to compel them to transfer, or to have transferred, to him four shares of stock of such corporation on the books thereof, which shares he alleged himself to be the owner of under prior purchases one each thereof from Lorna Carr Leavell, Mr. Lilienstern, L. E. Keeney Estate, and the Rogers Estate.

The special issue, together with the jury’s answer thereto, was as follows:

“Special Issue No. 1: The evidence m this case shows that plaintiff, Harold J. Morris purchased 4 shares of stock in the Times Review Publishing Co., in the first part of 1938 from Lorna Carr Leavell, Mr. Lilienstern, the L. E. Keeney Estate, and the Rogers Estate.

“Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that in April, 1938, or about said time, plaintiff, Harold J. Morris, sold such stock to Defendant, G. W. Cross, for a consideration of $125.00, to be paid by said Cross; answer ‘yes’ or ‘ño’.

“Answer: Yes.”

As will be noted, the trial court thus peremptorily charged the jury that appellant had been the actual owner of these four shares in the early part of 1938, as so alleged by him, that is, prior to the time the jury were in the quoted issue thus required to find whether he had later in that same month sold them to the appellee, G. W. Cross. So that, since neither litigant objects to this antecedent assumption of fact, the ownership of appellant at the time of this inquiry is no longer an issue.

For that reason, it is thought -that the fact otherwise alleged by appellant, as well as apparently shown, that no transfer of the shares from the prior owners to him had ever been entered upon the corporation’s books, nor certificate of that fact furnished him, is immaterial.

Wherefore, it is thought, the controlling, if not the sole question of law the appeal presents is whether such a sale of the same shares to the appellee, G. W. Cross, as the jury found occurred in the attending circumstances shown, constituted a defense to appellant’s mandamus suit. His position here is that it did not, that the court below erred in submitting any such an issue to the jury in the first place, and, in the second, in not having at his request duly made either eliminated it by instructed verdict in his favor at the close of the evidence, or by judgment non obstante veredicto after the jury’s answer had been returned.

This court cannot see eye to eye with appellant in these positions; in the first place, appellant sued the persons so constituting the directorate of the corporation —especially G. W. Cross — -as individuals, as well as in their official capacities, and, as stated, it must on appeal be assumed that he was then the rightful owner of the shares at the time he came to deal concerning them with G. W. Cross individually, as [1008]*1008the jury found he did do; in the second place, he does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence as a matter of fact to sustain the jury’s finding that he did make the sale of the four shares to G. W. Cross for $125; but what he contends for in this connection is that, under R. S. Article 1334, along with other statutes, no such a sale as the jury found to have been made by him to G. W. Cross was or could have been valid, because such transfer was not shown to have been made either upon the books of the corporation, or in such manner as its by-laws provided, the leading authorities cited by him for that position being Walker Caldwell Producing Co. v. Menefee, Tex.Civ.App., 240 S.W. 1023, error refused, and Hendricks v. Martin, Tex.Civ.App., 267 S.W. 1047, no error applied for. In answer to these contentions, the appellees, after citing their pleading to the effect that such a sale did take place, together with ample supporting evidence for the jury’s finding that it in fact took place, further answer as follows:

“Appellees earnestly contend that reason, justice, equity and the law support the judgment rendered in this cause, denying to Plaintiff -(Appellant) the writ of mandamus. Appellees insist that there is no law in this State requiring a transfer of stock to be made in writing or in any other particular manner. Article 1334 only provides that it be transferrable only on the books of the corporation in such manner 'as the by-laws may prescribe. We insist that no serious effort was made upon the trial of the case on the part of Plaintiff to show what the by-laws of the Times ' Review Publishing Company were upon that subject. Anyway, Appellees say, that as between the transferor, Plaintiff Morris, and the transferree, G. W. Cross, that becomes immaterial, because as between them the sale and transfer by delivery of the certificates passed ownership to said Defendant Cross. Volume 10 Tex.Jur., par. 211, reads as follows:

“ ‘Equitable Interest of Transferee Under Incomplete Transfer — In view of the statutory provision declaring that stock shall be transferable only on the books of the corporation in such manner as the bylaws may prescribe, a transferee of a stockholder is not invested with a complete title to the stock at law — that is to say, the right of ownership as against everybody, the right in rem — until it has been transferred to him on the books of the corporation. However, as between the parties, and as to creditors of the transferor or transferee, the rule is that delivery of the stock certificate with transfer endorsed either to a designated transferee or in blank passes ownership of the stock, regardless of the fact that no entry of the transfer has been made on the books of the corporation. This is not inconsistent with the statute, which controls as to the legal title to transferred stock, but leaves the Court to enforce equities created by unregistered dealings.’

“Further quoting from Vol. 10, Tex.Jur. par. 174-176:

“ ‘Stock in a corporation is property and the subject of free sale and delivery *

“ ‘Page 805:

" ‘A contract for the sale of shares of stock is governed, of course, by the rules which are applicable generally to assignments, contracts and sales * * * in this respect it has been held that the seller’s promise to deliver the stock is good consideration for the purchaser’s obligations under the contract * * * a contract for the sale of shares may be made by parol.’

“The numerous cases cited in that text support the rule. Certainly if a parol promise to deliver is good in law, as between the parties to the transfer, then certainly the actual delivery and sale, as in. the case at bar, was good as between Plaintiff and Defendant, G. W. Cross. Quoting further from Vol. 10, Tex.Jur., par. 198, pg. 831:

“ ‘* * * However, although not negotiable in the sense that an innocent purchaser for value from a thief obtains a right to the certificate as against the owner, certificates of stock are trans-ferrable by mere delivery.’

“The rule laid down in Vol. 10, Tex.Jur., par. 211, pg. 841, 842, hereinbefore quoted, ánd the cases cited therein, most definitely support the contention of Appellees in this case and the judgment entered therein.

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Related

N.Y. N.H.R.R. Co. v. . Schuyler
34 N.Y. 30 (New York Court of Appeals, 1865)
Walker Caldwell Producing Co. v. Menefee
240 S.W. 1023 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1922)
Hendricks v. Martin
267 S.W. 1047 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1924)
Strange v. H. & T. C. R. R. Co.
53 Tex. 162 (Texas Supreme Court, 1880)

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143 S.W.2d 1007, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morris-v-times-review-pub-co-texapp-1940.