Morrison v. Ardmore Industrial Development Corp.

444 P.2d 816
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 13, 1968
Docket43112
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 444 P.2d 816 (Morrison v. Ardmore Industrial Development Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morrison v. Ardmore Industrial Development Corp., 444 P.2d 816 (Okla. 1968).

Opinion

LAVENDER, Justice.

In this original proceeding in this court, the plaintiff, as a resident and taxpayer of, and owner of property in the City of Ard-more, Oklahoma, acting upon behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, asks this court to assume original jurisdiction and to enjoin the trustees of the Ard-more Development Authority from executing a proposed bond indenture, a proposed lease agreement between the trustees and Uniroyal, Inc., a corporation, which would produce the revenues for payment of the bonds to be issued under the proposed bond indenture, and the interest thereon, and from issuing any bonds, pursuant to the proposed bond indenture, which would provide the funds for the acquisition of the land, and the construction and equipment of improvements thereon, covered by the proposed lease, or taking any further action or proceedings in connection therewith. The essential facts pleaded by the plaintiff are admitted by the defendants.

By a written trust indenture dated April 15, 1964, the Ardmore Industrial Development Corporation, a corporation, as “trustor,” and seven individuals, as “trustees,” created a public trust, with the City of Ardmore, Oklahoma, as the “beneficiary,” for the purpose (among others) of acquiring, owning, constructing, reconstructing, extending, improving, leasing, purchasing, installing, equipping, maintaining, repairing, enlarging, remodeling, and operating buildings and other facilities for (among *819 other purposes) the use of corporations, individuals, partnerships or proprietary-companies for industrial development; and, in accordance with the provisions of Oklahoma’s “public trust act” (60 O.S.1961, §§ 176 through 180), the City of Ardmore accepted the beneficial interest in such trust, which was done by city ordinance and such acceptance was endorsed on the trust indenture.

That trust indenture provided that the trustees of the trust shall be citizens and residents of the beneficiary city who are the persons then holding the offices of President, Vice President, Second Vice President, and Treasurer of the trustor corporation, and the Mayor of the beneficiary city, as voting trustees, and the City Manager of the Beneficiary and the Executive Manager of the Chamber of Commerce of the beneficiary city, as non-voting, advisory trustees, and their successors in office. The seven individuals who executed the trust indenture as “trustees,” and thereby accepted the duties of trustees thereunder, occupied those offices at the time.

Under date of November 29, 1967, the corporate trustor, the beneficiary city, and the seven trustees of the Ardmore Development Authority, entered into a written instrument amending some of the provisions of the original trust indenture relating to the trustees of the trust. The amendment provided for twelve trustees, with nine of them, referred to as “regular” trustees, having all of the voting power, and three of them, referred to as “ex-officio” trustees (the City Manager of the beneficiary city, the Executive Manager of the Chamber of Commerce, and the person named by the “trustees” as the General Manager of the Trust and Industrial Director of the beneficiary city), and their successors, being non-voting, advisory trustees. Under the amendment, three of the nine voting trustees are appointed by the governing body of the beneficiary city, and three of them are appointed by the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce of the beneficiary city, and those six trustees appoint the other three voting trustees. The City of Ardmore officially accepted the beneficial interest under the trust indenture as so amended, and the present trustees were appointed as provided in this amendment. By stipulation filed herein, the parties hereto state that, by written instrument attached to the stipulation, all other parties having vested interests because of prior transactions with the trustees consented to this amendment to the original trust indenture and to a second amendment to the original trust indenture, hereinafter mentioned.

The trustees admit that, as alleged by the plaintiff, they intend to execute the proposed bond indenture and the proposed lease agreement, pleaded by the plaintiff, and to issue the $73,000,000. aggregate principal amount of industrial development bonds provided for in that bond indenture, without any approval of any such action by the electors of the beneficiary city.

As the basis for the injunction prayed for by the plaintiff, he contends, first, that the above-mentioned amendment of the trust indenture terminated the trust because it is in violation of the following provision of Section 1 of Article VIII of the trust indenture:

“ * * * Trustor now declares that this Trust Indenture shall be irrevocable from the moment it is signed by him and delivered to the Trustees, and that it shall thereafter stand without any power whatsoever at any time to alter, amend, revise, modify, revoke or terminate any of the provisions of this Trust Indenture;”

and second, that, if such amendment be effective, it results in the beneficiary city having such practical control over the trustees and the trust that the legal and equitable interests of the trustees and the beneficiary under the original trust indenture merged and terminated the trust, or that the city is using the trust in such a way as to come within the exception stated in the second paragraph of the court’s syllabus to Fort v. Oklahoma Industries, Inc., et al. *820 (1963), Okl., 385 P.2d 470, so that the provisions of the Local Industrial Development Act (62 O.S.1961, §§ 651 through 664) are applicable and the bonds in question cannot be issued without the approval of a majority of the qualified electors of the city voting at an election called for that purpose and the bonds must comply with the provisions of that act.

Considering the questions concerning the application of the Local Industrial Development Act (which can be reached only after determining the questions concerning the effectiveness of the amendment to the original trust indenture involved in this case) to be of as much public importance, and the need for an early determination thereof to be as great, as in Fort v. Oklahoma Industries, Inc., supra, or in Meder v. City of Oklahoma City et al. (1960), Okl., 350 P.2d 916, or Morris v. City of Oklahoma City et al. (1956), Okl., 299 P.2d 131, we have assumed original jurisdiction on the basis of those cases.

We construe the provision of Section 1 of Article VIII of the original trust indenture, relied upon by the plaintiff, as being applicable only to unilateral action by the trustor, and as not precluding any action mentioned therein when taken jointly, as here, by the trustor, the trustees of the trust, and the beneficiary of the trust, with the consent of all other interested parties.

Under the provisions of 60 O.S. 1961, § 175.41, every trust (other than a spendthrift trust not created by the trustor for his own benefit) is revocable by the trustor unless expressly made irrevocable by the terms of the instrument creating'the trust, but any trust (other than a spendthrift trust not created by the trustor for his own benefit) may be revoked by the trustor upon the written consent of all living persons having a vested or contingent interest in the trust.

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Bluebook (online)
444 P.2d 816, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morrison-v-ardmore-industrial-development-corp-okla-1968.