Ogden v. Ogden

331 So. 2d 592
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 12, 1976
Docket10667
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 331 So. 2d 592 (Ogden v. Ogden) 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
Ogden v. Ogden, 331 So. 2d 592 (La. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinion

331 So.2d 592 (1976)

Mrs. Ruby Yvonne H. OGDEN
v.
John Randolph OGDEN.

No. 10667.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

April 12, 1976.
Rehearing Denied May 24, 1976.

*593 Fred H. Belcher, Jr., Baton Rouge, for appellant.

Ashton L. Stewart, Baton Rouge, for appellee.

Before ELLIS, BLANCHE and LOTTINGER, JJ.

LOTTINGER, Judge.

Plaintiff, Mrs. Ruby Yvonne H. Ogden, filed this suit on May 8, 1968, against defendant, John Randolph Ogden, for a partition of a dissolved community. The parties were married on December 26, 1956, and lived in Baton Rouge. Mrs. Ogden filed a suit for a separation of bed and board on April 14, 1966, on which a judgment was rendered on June 7, 1966. The parties were divorced on August 24, 1967. This suit seeks an accounting of the community affairs from Mr. Ogden, an inventory of its assets, and a partition thereof.

After trial on January 15 and 17, 1969, the District Court entered written reasons on the issues presented to it dated May 20, 1970.

On April 4, 1975, Mrs. Ogden (then remarried to Kelleher) filed a rule against defendant to complete the partition. A final judgment was signed by the District Court encompassing its reasons for judgment of May 20, 1970, and its rulings on the issues on the above rule, which was tried on May 19, 1975. As is shown by the evidence, the parties have partitioned the immovable property. The final judgment made an accounting of money and granted Mrs. Ogden a judgment against Mr. Ogden for $10,730.00, with legal interest from date of the separation. This judgment ordered a partition in kind of various shares of stock and household furniture. The judgment also recognized the parties as *594 owners in indivision of various promissory notes. Both parties have appealed.

There are five areas in which one or the other of the parties is not satisfied with the ruling of the Trial Court, and we will discuss them in the following order.

I. Mrs. Ogden contends that the Trial Court improperly allowed Mr. Ogden a claim for $10,461.09 which the Trial Court found to be his separate property as his one-sixth interest in the net worth of Gordon Theatre at the time of his marriage to Mrs. Ogden.
II. Mr. Ogden submits that the District Court erred in classifying 250 shares of stock of Broadmoor Theatres, Inc. in his name as community property.
III. Likewise Mr. Ogden claims that the Trial Court erred in classifying 127 shares of stock of Gordon C. Ogden Theatre, Inc. in his name as community property.
IV. Mr. Ogden contends that the Trial Court erred in classifying the money paid to him at the end of the years 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Broadmoor Theatres, Inc. as dividends instead of as compensation for work actually done.
V. Mrs. Ogden complained that the Trial Court incorrectly allowed Mr. Ogden a claim for $6,689.94 which was the amount of a down payment he made on real property known as Rittiner Terrace duplex.

Defendant inherited from his father an undivided one-sixth interest in a motion picture enterprise known as the Gordon Theatre at 412 North Fourth Street in Baton Rouge. Defendant's father and mother originally owned the theatre business, and he and his two brothers inherited his father's undivided one-half interest in undivided thirds.

Though defendant was a minor at the time of his father's death, the Gordon Theatre continued to be operated in the same manner it had always been even though no Court authority was obtained to do so with regard to the share of the minor children. After the death of defendant's father, the theatre business had one bank account in the name of Gordon C. Ogden Partnership, and it filed a partnership return for federal income tax purposes. Defendant argues that the business is a partnership, whereas plaintiff argues it to be a joint venture. Since the question of whether Gordon Theatre was a partnership is common to a number of the questions before us, we will consider that question at this time.

Darden v. Cox, 240 La. 310, 123 So.2d 68, 71 (1960), rehearing denied (1960), sets out the requirements for a partnership, to-wit:

"First, the parties must have mutually consented to form a partnership and to participate in the profits which may accrue from property, skill or industry, furnished to the business in determined proportions by them. Arts. 2801, 2805 of the Civil Code; Labat v. Labat, 232 La. 627, 95 So.2d 129. Secondly, all parties must share in the losses as well as the profits of the venure. Art. 2814 of the Civil Code; Amacker v. Kent, 144 La. 545, 80 So. 717. Thirdly, the property or stock of the enterprise must form a community of goods in which each party has a proprietary interest. Art. 2808 of the Civil Code; Belden v. Read & Hunt, 27 La.Ann. 103; Chaffraix & Agard v. Lafitte & Co., 30 La.Ann. 631; Shushan Bros. & Co. v. Drennan & Hillcoat, 158 La. 480, 104 So. 214."

Mrs. Ogden argues that the Gordon Theatre business could not have been a partnership because Mr. Ogden, the defendant, was a minor at the time of his father's death and could not give the necessary consent for the formation of a partnership. While the partnership was a relative *595 nullity up to the time of Mr. Ogden's marriage to plaintiff, the marriage emancipated him. LSA-C.C. art. 379.[1] Following emancipation, Mr. Ogden's failure to object to the partnership and his participation therein was a tacit ratification of the partnership. LSA-C.C. art. 1785.[2] The second and third requisites of a partnership have also been met. Therefore, the Gordon Theatre business was a partnership which the partners named Gordon C. Ogden Partnership. Further, it appears to us that even though in his written reasons for judgment, the Trial Judge does not declare the Gordon Theatre business as a partnership, he treated it as such because he only allowed the community the enhanced value. Abraham v. Abraham, 230 La. 78, 87 So.2d 735 (1956).

I.

Mrs. Ogden contends that the Trial Court improperly allowed defendant his claim for $10,461.09 which was his undivided one-sixth interest in the net worth of the Gordon Theatre business known as Gordon C. Ogden Partnership at the time of his marriage to Mrs. Ogden. There is no question that $10,461.09 is the correct net worth, but Mrs. Ogden argues that the majority of this net worth was in the form of cash in the Gordon Theatre bank account in the name of Gordon C. Ogden Partnership. She argues that income from Mr. Ogden's separate property was community property which is correct, but she further argues that as partnership income was commingled with cash on deposit at the date of marriage the commingling caused defendant's interest in the account to be considered community property under our jurisprudence.

We do not agree. The Gordon Theatre business was a partnership, and as such it is a separate legal entity. The defendant, Mr. Ogden, owns only an undivided interest in the partnership. He has no interest in the assets of the partnership other than his interest. All of the income deposited in the partnership account belonged to the partnership, and not to the partners in undivided interests. Dubuisson v. Moseley, 232 So.2d 870 (La.App.3rd Cir.1970).

The only claim that the community can have against this partnership is for the enhanced value of the interest, owned by the defendant since he married. LSA-C.C. art. 2408[3] and Abraham v.

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331 So. 2d 592, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ogden-v-ogden-lactapp-1976.