Western Securities Co. v. Spiro

221 P. 856, 62 Utah 623, 1923 Utah LEXIS 143
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 12, 1923
DocketNo. 4023
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 221 P. 856 (Western Securities Co. v. Spiro) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Western Securities Co. v. Spiro, 221 P. 856, 62 Utah 623, 1923 Utah LEXIS 143 (Utah 1923).

Opinion

FRICK, J.

The Western Securities Company, a corporation, hereinafter called plaintiff, sued the defendant in the district court of Salt Lake county to recover upon two causes of action. The first cause of action was based upon an open account, and the second upon a promissory note.

The defendant, in addition to other defenses, set up a counterclaim and cross-demands, which he alleged should be set off against any amount that should be found due, if any, on either or both of plaintiff’s causes of action. The cross-demands were, however, preferred against one H. P. Clark, who, the defendant averred, was the real party in interest, and that the claims of the plaintiff arose out of transactions had between the defendant and said Clark, and not between the plaintiff and defendant, although many of the transactions were executed in the corporate name of the plaintiff. The plaintiff filed a reply, in which it denied defendant’s version of the [627]*627transactions, and in an amendment to tbe reply also averred that a certain note which was set up as a cross-demand by defendant was without consideration.

The ease was tried to the court as an action at law. In view that the findings of the court fairly reflect the pleadings and the evidence, except as hereinafter pointed out, and in view of the nature of the questions presented for decision, we shall set forth the findings somewhat fully. In view, however, that the findings of fact and the evidence are not fully reflected in the abstract, we have had recourse to the original bill of exceptions, and therefore, in so far as reference is made herein to the findings or the evidence, such reference is to the original findings as they are found in the bill of exceptions.

So far as possible we condense the court’s findings. It found that one H. P. Clark of Salt Lake City “procured to be organized the plaintiff organization’’ with a nominal capital stock of $100,000, divided into 1,000 shares; that said Clark subscribed for 990 shares, and two others who are named subscribed for 5 shares each; that neither of the other two subscribers “ever had any interest in said corporation or in the organization thereof, and never paid anything whatever upon their subscriptions, * * * but simply allowed the use of their names, and signed the articles of incorporation to oblige said Clark, and enable him to incorporate the plaintiff corporation; that said corporation was procured to be organized by said Clark for the purpose of the transaction of his personal business under the name of Western Securities Company whenever his interest, convenience, or inclination prompted him to do so, * * * and said Clark has, ever since the organization of said corporation, owned and controlled the same, and has frequently assumed and used the name Western Securities Company in the transaction of his own personal affairs”; that prior to the agreements and transactions set forth in the complaint and in the defendant’s answer, “said Clark informed the defendant that said Clark for business reasons had assumed, and was then using, the Western Securities Company as the name by which said Clark would frequently be known in his personal dealings and transactions with defendant, and that at the time of the dealings [628]*628and transactions set forth in the answer, where the name Western Securities Company was used, the plaintiff and said Clark represented to defendant that the name Western Securities Company was being used as an assumed name by said Clark in those particular1 dealings and transactions and each of them, and it was understood and agreed by and between plaintiff and defendant and said Clark that, although such dealings and transactions were in form dealings and transactions between said Western Securities Company and the defendant, they were, nevertheless, in fact dealings and transactions between said Clark and the defendant”; that in said dealings and transactions said Clark was in fact the real party in interest, and the defendant treated all of the dealings and agreements made in the name of the Western Securities Company and involved in this action as the personal dealings and agreements of said Clark; that during the years in which the transactions and dealings involved in this proceeding were had, large amounts of money were required for the purchase of mining stocks by both said Clark and the defendant; that said Clark during said time was engaged in the banking business, and was president of a bank in Salt Lake City, “and did not desire it to be generally known that he was speculating largely in mining stocks, and in the dealings between said Clark and defendant in the matter of their joint speculations in the purchase and sale of mining stocks, and in the matter of borrowing money by one from the other, and in paying out or advancing money by one for the other, and in their written agreements concerning such transactions, the said Clark quite generally assumed and used the name of the Western Securities Company, ’ ’ and in that way and name entered into contracts with the defendant and others; “that this action was brought and prosecuted by said Clark in his own interest and behalf,” and said Clark and not the plaintiff is the real party in interest; that said Clark, between certain stated dates, paid out on behalf of the defendant different sums of money, which in the aggregate amounted to the sum of $21,776.80, on which there was paid and credited at the commencement of this action the sum of $5,121.42, leaving an unpaid balance, which, with interest “to this date,” amounts to $25,960.49; that all [629]

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Bluebook (online)
221 P. 856, 62 Utah 623, 1923 Utah LEXIS 143, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/western-securities-co-v-spiro-utah-1923.