Trick v. Trick

587 S.W.2d 771, 1979 Tex. App. LEXIS 4089
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 5, 1979
Docket6871
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 587 S.W.2d 771 (Trick v. Trick) 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
Trick v. Trick, 587 S.W.2d 771, 1979 Tex. App. LEXIS 4089 (Tex. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

OPINION

OSBORN, Justice.

This divorce case involves a division of the community property and primarily relates to the issue of value of stock in a medical professional association. We affirm the judgment of the trial Court.

These parties were married in June, 1967, just after Dr. Trick graduated from medical school. He spent the next eight years in the Air Force working as a medical doctor, *772 and during that time did his orthopaedic residency. In July, 1975, he began private practice with the San Antonio Orthopaedic Group, P.A. At that time, there were four other physicians in the Group. A year later, he signed an employment contract and stock purchase agreement with the right to purchase one-fifth of the stock of the Association over a five-year period at a total cost of approximately $80,000.00. At the time of trial, he had paid approximately $32,000.00 on this commitment and received approximately eight percent of the stock of the Association. The Association had a stock redemption agreement with all of the doctors in the Association, which provided that in the event any doctor left the Group his stock was to be repurchased at a price to be determined by a formula provided in the agreement. That formula provided that the value of the stock should be the capital and surplus of the Group plus the full amount of all accounts receivable, less a five percent collection discount, less a reserve for uncollectible or doubtful accounts, less accounts payable by the Group, less a provision for income tax to be paid by the Group plus an allowance of ten percent of the sum of the above items as good will. Based upon that formula, the evidence at trial indicated the value of each share of stock in the Association was $17.86. The jury found the value of the parties’ 1,141.5 shares of stock to be $37,852.14. They found the value of the right to acquire an additional 1,594.5 shares of stock to be “0.”

The Court divided all of the community property and included in the sum awarded to the wife the sum of $20,000.00 for her interest in the stock of San Antonio Ortho-paedic Group, P.A.

By her first three points of error, the Appellant complains of the trial Court’s refusal to permit Eugene P. Cagle to testify as an expert witness. By this witness, the Appellant offered to prove that the value of the parties’ stock in the Association was $1,040,000.00. Mr. Cagle graduated from high school, and attended Southwestern Graduate School of Banking at S.M.U., but he does not have a college degree. He had been employed as a vice president of the American National Bank in Austin and as a vice president by First National Bank of San Antonio. For about six months he was president of Security Bank of Ridge Hill, Missouri. He was in the banking business approximately twenty years. In 1974, he became a wholesale distributor of copying machines. In November of that year, he attempted to set up a joint venture in agriculture in Iran, but it has never been completed. He now serves as a vice president and general manager of a chemical company-

When the witness was taken on voir dire examination as to his qualifications, he said that he did not belong to any professional organizations or societies, he is not an accountant, and does not subscribe to any trade publications. With regard to evaluating stock of a professional corporation, his testimony was as follows:

Q Have you had any other experience as far as going in and valuating a professional association as to the value of their stock?
A Well, by the methods — I personally have not done that, but these are acceptable methods for the valuation.
Q But you yourself have never done it?
A No.
Q And have you ever done it for a set of attorneys?
A No.
Q And you told me before you have never come into court, never testified in any kind of a case; is that true?
A That’s correct. Well, let me clarify this. As a quote expert witness?
Q Yes.
A Correct.

While he had as a banker made loans to many companies, he readily acknowledged that “you don’t value the stock in each one of those companies in arriving at whether or not to extend credit.” He also testified:

Q Are you familiar with the income tax code and the laws that are applied to *773 professional corporations and associations?
A Not particularly, no.
Q And you never before valued a professional association as to stock; is that correct?
A No.

The general rule with regard to qualifications of an expert witness is set forth in 2 McCormick & Ray, Texas Law of Evidence, Sec. 1401 (1956), as follows:

Since his testimony is received on the theory that he possesses a knowledge or skill not had by people generally, his qualification must affirmatively appear before his opinion will be received. The burden of establishing his qualification naturally rests upon the party offering the alleged expert. Whether the person offered possesses the required qualification is a preliminary question to be determined by the trial judge and should not be left to the jury. In the decision of this question our courts have wisely held that the trial judge has a wide discretion not subject to review in the absence of clear abuse, (footnotes omitted)

That same section of the text goes on to say: “The person offered must possess special knowledge as to the very matter on which he proposes to give an opinion.”

In Wilson v. Scott, 412 S.W.2d 299 (Tex. 1967), the Court, in an opinion by Justice Pope, considered a trial court’s ruling that a medical doctor was not qualified to express an opinion in a medical malpractice case. The Court found no error in excluding the testimony and, in doing so, noted that the doctor was no longer a practicing physician, but was engaged in business and that he had no special knowledge in the particular area of medicine involved in that case. In Loyd v. Rumbaugh Trucking Company, 313 S.W.2d 542 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1958, writ ref’d n.r.e.), this Court upheld the exclusion of testimony of witnesses offered as expert truck drivers, where they had not driven the type of truck involved in an accident in that case. The same result was reached by the Court in an opinion by Justice Norvell in Union Bus Lines v. Moulder,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
587 S.W.2d 771, 1979 Tex. App. LEXIS 4089, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/trick-v-trick-texapp-1979.