White v. Thwing

256 S.W. 216, 300 Mo. 680, 1923 Mo. LEXIS 277
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedNovember 20, 1923
StatusPublished

This text of 256 S.W. 216 (White v. Thwing) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
White v. Thwing, 256 S.W. 216, 300 Mo. 680, 1923 Mo. LEXIS 277 (Mo. 1923).

Opinion

*686 JAMES T. BLAIR, J.

— Appellants brought this suit to secure the cancellation of a note and certain assignments of a lease and a deed of trust thereon given to secure the note.. The grounds set up are that the .execution of the several instruments was induced by fraudulent representations. Riespondents filed a cross-bill praying judgment on the note and for foreclosure. The trial court rendered judgment as -prayed in the cross-bill, and this appeal followed. Appellants contend the judgment must be reversed for several reasons, one of which is that the finding is wrong- on the facts. This will require some details of the evidence which covers many hundreds of pages.

The note in question was given for the price of 22,000 shares of Union Oil Company stock which appellant *687 James H. White purchased. The petition alleges that to induce White to purchase the stock, respondent Thwing falsely represented to him that (1) the capital stock of the Union Oil Company in the sum of $1,500,000 was fully paid and noil-assessable; (2) the “whole of the capital stock was paid up in full in good faith with cash and property actually worth the amount of the capital of” the company; (3) “the company was not indebted in any sum except small monthly obligations for work, labor and supplies” and “could pay all its debts on demand;” (4) the company “then had a daily production of oil from its wells of over 18001 barrels per day, . . .

then being sold at the prevailing market price;” (5) “ Well No: 18 on Denny lease was in a lake .of oil thirty-seven feet deep and didn’t know how wide it was but knew it was large;” (6) “said Union Oil Company was then the owner of leases to 80,000 acres of good oil- and gas-producing land in Kansas.” It is then alleged that White knew nothing of the condition of the company and relied upon Thwing’s representations and bought the stock and gave the notes and security on the faith of them; that all representations were false. It is also alleged that Thwing was engaged with others in a stock jobbing business “principally for the purpose of de'frauding people in Kansas City, including” appellants. The petition alleges in -detail the facts and circumstances asserted to have accompanied the execution of the note in suit and one for a less sum previously executed. Further reference to the petition may become necessary in another connection.

White is a man of intelligence and energy and of wide experience and pronounced success in the business world. He had lived in Kansas City thirty-seven years and was about fifty-five years of age at the time of the transactions in question. He was first in the furnishing-goods business and later organized the Baltimore Shirt Company, which operates three stores in Kansas City. He has bought and sold stores. He established one man in the wall-paper business and was interested in a shoe *688 business at one time. He dealt extensively and successfully in real estate. He helped promote and build and is part owner of the Elms Hotel at Excelsior Springs. He owns the Washington Hotel, the White Hotel and a half interest in the Dreyfoos Hotel, in Kansas City, all large and .valuable properties. His interest in the last of the last three is worth $10.0,000>. He owns other .real estate. He took a little flyer in the Joplin zinc district at one time, and once assisted in promoting-a life' insurance company in Kansas and became half owner of it. He says he owns property worth about a quarter of a million dollars in addition to his interest in the Baltimore Shirt Company. Jn his list are 2925 acres of Texas land, acquired in 1910', which he has taken off the market because there is some indication of oil. In the fall of 1917 White and King, one of his witnesses, organized the Towanda-Eldorado Oil Company. They first bought a lease on 320 acres of land in Butler County, Kansas, for $501,000. Each put up $5,0001 in cash, and the balance they borrowed on their note. They also1 agreed to pay $20,000' additional for the lease, in oil, if oil was struck. Their next step was to sell one-half interest in the lease to a IDIenver1 group for $80',000, and then the two interests Joined and formed the company named, and put in the 320-acres lease in full payment of the capital stock of $1,000,0001 This was inOctober or November, 1917. The 320-acre lease thus capitalized adj'oined one of the leases of the Union Oil Company, the Sargeant lease, and is about two miles from the Denny lease of the Union Oil Company, which plays an important part in.this case. White visited the 320-acres -lease in 1917.

The Union Oil Company was organized in January, 1917, and. incorporated March 2nd of that year. Its offices are located at Wichita, Kansas. Mr. P. O. -Hoyt early in 1917 owned or held options on leases covering approximately 80,000 acres. In some of these leases he had associates. Thirty-six' hundred and seventy-three acres of these, or about five and three-fourths square miles, were in Butler County, which was the scene of much of the oil *689 development at the time, and wherein were located the Shnmway wells which were producing' or had produced oil in enormous quantities. A great number of other wells were then producing*. The remaining* leases covered land, in the main, in counties adjoining* or near Butler County. Much of the land under lease was promising, but much of it was clearly not so. The Union Oil Company was incorporated for $1,500,000. The shares had a par value of one dollar. For his leases, which were made over to the company, Hioyt received 1,150, 0001 shares of the stock. The balance, 350,000' shares, became treasury stock and was subsequently sold. The company afterwards expended $50,000 in acquiring additional leases. One forty-acre lease so purchased “was located within a baseball throw of big production” according to the vice-president- and treasurer of the company. The Hill lease, acquired from Hoyt in the first lot, was, just across the road “from production.” Two wells nearby were producing about 300 barrels apiece. This lease alone cost Hoyt or his backers $277,000'. The Denny lease was about one mile from the Shumway wells, two of which produced 15,000’ barrels each per day. The Hill lease was at the center of original oil production in Butler County. In March, 1918, there'’ were seven producing wells on the Denny lease, and seven deep wells and fourteen shallow wells on the Hill lease. These shallow wells averaged about fifty barrels per day, according to Mr. Jordan. Drilling* was proceeding on the Sargeant lease with good prospects, and Well No. 18 was being drilled on the Denny lease. Gas was being produced which yielded a cash return of $3,000’ or $4,000 per month, and Jordan states that several other leases “had good promise.” Twelve or fifteen brokers in Kansas City were buying and selling oil stock. No. 18 Denny did not begin producing oil until several days after March 6, 1918. The well was bought in on the 18th of March. The brokers’ records show that Union Oil Company stock was selling at about two dollars per share on March 8, 1918. On March 9th the sales ranged from $2.75 to $3.70. One broker on that day sold 6600* shares at an *690 average price of $2.89. A dozen or more brokers were handling the stock. These were actual sales, according to those of the brokers who testified.

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Bluebook (online)
256 S.W. 216, 300 Mo. 680, 1923 Mo. LEXIS 277, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/white-v-thwing-mo-1923.