Tate v. Dupuis

195 So. 810, 1940 La. App. LEXIS 46
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 8, 1940
DocketNo. 2119.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 195 So. 810 (Tate v. Dupuis) 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
Tate v. Dupuis, 195 So. 810, 1940 La. App. LEXIS 46 (La. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

OTT, Judge.

The issues in the case will appear from a statement of the pleadings. The plaintiff filed two supplemental petitions, and we will consider the allegations in these as well as those in the original petition in our effort to state the grounds on which the plaintiff seeks to recover. As an exception of no cause of action was sustained as to two of the defendants and a plea to the jurisdiction of the court, ratione personae, was sustained as to the other defendant and as both the exception and the plea were sustained on the allegations in the original and supplemental petitions, we will state the facts as though the allegations of the petitions were proven.

In the year 1932, plaintiff, together with Victor L. Dupuis, Emile Ludeau, E. P. Barrios and C. L. Haynes, were the owners of the capital stock of the Evangeline Parish Products Co., Inc., and all five of these stockholders endorsed promissory notes executed by said corporation to various payees aggregating $12,126. Some time prior to May, 1933, the plaintiff sold his stock in the corporation to Alfred E. Guillot. At the time that plaintiff sold his stock as aforesaid, he was still liable as one of the endorsers on the notes of the-corporation, the balance remaining due on these notes on May 17, 1933, being the sum of $10,626. There was no agreement on the part of Guillot at the time he purchased plaintiff’s stock in the corporation that he would as-' sume responsibility for plaintiff’s endorsements on the notes of the corporation.

On the above date, the stockholders of the corporation consisting of those already named and Gqillot who had taken the place of the plaintiff as a stockholder, by proper resolutions as stockholders and directors of the corporation, authorized the execution on behalf of the corporation of five promissory notes for $2,125.20 each, secured by a chattel mortgage on all of the movable property of the corporation, due two years from date, with interest, one of said notes to be delivered to each of said stockholders (including Guillot) to secure them on account of their endorsement of the notes of the corporation on which there was then a balance due of $10,626, making the pro-rata part of each endorser the amount of each of sáid five notes. The notes and chattel mortgage were duly executed by the corporation in accordance with the resolutions, and the notes were delivered to the then stockholders including Guillot.

It will be observed that, while the plaintiff remained liable as an endorser on the notes and Guillot assumed no liability therefor, the plaintiff did not receive any of said notes nor was he named in the resolutions and chattel mortgage as a mortgagee or holder and beneficiary of any of the notes secured by the property of the corporation and which notes and mortgage were given to secure the endorsements of the corporation’s notes.

The corporation was placed in the hands of a receiver a little less than a year after the notes and mortgage in favor of the stockholders were executed, and in May, 1934, in the receivership proceeding and under an order of court, the property of the corporation covered by the said chattel mortgage was transferred to said five stockholders in payment and satisfaction of said chattel mortgage. By this action, four of the stockholders who had endorsed the notes of the corporation received property of the corporation to protect or re-imburse them for the amount they had paid or would be required to pay, oil account of their endorsements.

It will be observed again that Guillot, who was not liable for any endorsements, *812 received one-fifth of this mortgage property; the plaintiff received none of it. The plaintiff nevertheless paid all of his pro rata part of the notes of the corporation which he and the other four stockholders had endorsed, the total amount paid by the plaintiff being the sum of $2,502.72.

Shortly after the mortgaged property had been taken over by these five stockholders in the receivership proceedings, the corporation was dissolved and,, another corporation formed in May, 1935, under the name of The Evangeline Parish Products Co., Inc., with Dupuis, Ludeau and Guillot as incorporators, these three having purchased the interest of Barrios and Haynes in the property which all five had received in the receivership proceedings of the old corporation as aforesaid. The above named three incorporators of the new corporation transferred all of this property of the old corporation to the new one in payment of stock in the new corporation.

Just after this new corporation was formed by said Dupuis, Ludeau and Guil-lot, plaintiff sold three lots of ground in Ville Platte to the corporation for $1,500. Then in April, 1937, these three stockholders of the new corporation, by proper resolutions as directors and stockholders, sold all the property of the corporation (which included all of the property acquired from the old corporation in the manner aforesaid and the lots which had been acquired from plaintiff) to W. C. Kimbrough for a consideration of $6,002, of which the purchaser paid $200 in cash and executed three promissory notes for $1,934 each for the balance, each of the notes being payable in installments of $33% per month. This corporation was not dissolved but was continued for the purpose of collecting these notes and distributing the proceeds to said stockholders, Dupuis, Ludeau, and Guillot.

This suit by the plaintiff is against these three parties, Dupuis, Ludeau and Guillot (the corporation also being made a defendant by supplemental petition), to recover of them in solido for one-fifth of the amount collected by the defendants of the sale of the property to Kimbrough, and recognizing plaintiff as the owner of a one-fifth interest in the balance of the Kimbrough notes, less the value of the lots which plaintiff sold the corporation and included in the sale to Kimbrough. In other words, plaintiff seeks to recover from the defendants one-fifth of the value of the property of the old corporation • of which he was at one time a stockholder, which property came into the new corporation as aforesaid and was sold to Kimbrough for $4,502 (that is the total consideration of the sale to Kimbrough less $1,500, the value of said lots).

The ground on which plaintiff bases his right to recover from these defendants is set out in his petition as follows: “That all of the aforesaid acts and doings of said defendants inured under the law of this State to the benefit of petitioner to the extent of a % part of all of the property and money had and received by said defendants as a result of the personal endorsements of the notes described in Article II hereof, for which petitioner is entitled to judgment against said defendants in solido.”

Dupuis and Ludeau, among other exceptions filed one of no cause or right of action which was sustained. Guillot filed a plea to the jurisdiction of the court on the ground that he is a resident of Lafayette Parish. This plea was sustained, and plaintiff has appealed from the judgment which dismissed his suit' against these three defendants. No action was taken as to the corporation, made a defendant in a supplemental petition.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
195 So. 810, 1940 La. App. LEXIS 46, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tate-v-dupuis-lactapp-1940.