Opinion ID: 1709084
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Guaranty Agreement

Text: In this instrument, Southern, Henderson, and the Operating Company are the guarantors, and the Department, the City and the trustee under the mortgage and deed of trust are the obligees. Southern and Henderson unconditionally guarantee the prompt and faithful performance by the Operating Company of all the obligations on the part of the Operating Company contained in the employment agreement, and Southern and the Operating Company unconditionally guarantee the prompt and faithful performance by Henderson of all the obligations on the part of Henderson contained in the service requirements agreement. Each of the respondents below demurred to Rogers' amended complaint and also demurred to and answered Boyes' amended bill of intervention. The trial court reserved its rulings on these demurrers until after a hearing on the merits of Boyes' amended bill of intervention. Evidence was offered at that hearing, including, inter alia, evidence as to (1) the wisdom, propriety and desirability of various actions proposed to be taken by the City and the Department in consummation of the plan; (2) certain understandings or agreements that, if the plan should be consummated, (a) the Department would purchase from Henderson the land on which the project will be constructed, and (b) the City would acquire certain engineering drawings from Henderson and would require the contractor who would construct the project for the City to purchase certain machinery from Henderson at a price to be determined by a formula already agreed upon; (3) the processing, packaging and storage operations which the Department proposes to carry on at the project; and (4) several processing, packaging and storage operations that for many years have been carried on, and at the time of the hearing were being carried on, at the Port of Mobile in buildings owned by the Department in connection with various products shipped into and out of said port. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court, on August 13, 1962, rendered a decree which, in summary, sustained the respondents' demurrers to the complaint; gave complainant ten days in which to amend; held the following: That the project as intended and proposed to be consummated will be a lawful undertaking, that the City, the Board of Commissioners of the City of Mobile and the members thereof, and the Director of the Department had power and authority to enter into the preliminary agreement dated September 19, 1961, attached as Exhibit `A' to the bill of complaint in this cause, and have power and authority to enter into and consummate each of the documents, instruments and agreements mentioned in said preliminary agreement and attached as Exhibits `B', `C', `D', `E' and `F' to the bill of complaint as last amended (viz.: Exhibit `B'Ground Lease; Exhibit `C'Mortgage and Deed of Trust; Exhibit `D'Project Lease; Exhibit `E'Employment Agreement; Exhibit `F'Service Requirements Agreement), and that the service requirements agreement attached as Exhibit `F' to the bill of complaint as last amended is not lacking in mutuality, dismissing the bill of intervention of Earl T. Boyes (an appellant in 1 Div. 95 and 95A and the only appellant in 1 Div. 95B and 95C); and taxed the costs incident to the proceedings in intervention    one-half (½) to the intervenor and one-half (½) to the respondents (appellees in 1 Div. 95, the original appellants in 1 Div. 95A and appellees in 1 Div. 95B and 95C). Rogers, having declined to plead further, the trial court, on August 31, 1962, rendered a decree dismissing his amended complaint and taxing to him the costs, other than those in the proceedings in intervention. A summary of the six appeals is as follows: The appeal in 1 Div. 95 was brought by Rogers from the decree of August 31 dismissing his amended complaint. The issue on this appeal concerns the lawfulness of the plan as embodied in the six agreements. Boyes' subsequent appeal in 1 Div. 95 also is from the decree of August 31 and presents the same issue as in Rogers' appeal. The respondents' appeal in 1 Div. 95A is is from the August 13th decree. The issue presented is whether the trial court abused its discretion in taxing to respondents any part of the costs in the intervention proceeding. Boyes' subsequent appeal in 1 Div. 95A also is from the August 13th decree. The issues on this appeal concern the lawfulness of the plan as embodied in the six agreements and whether it was error to tax Boyes with any part of the costs in the intervention proceeding. Boyes' appeal in 1 Div. 95B, also from the August 13th decree, presents the same issues as those in his appeal in 1 Div. 95A. Boyes' appeal in 1 Div. 95C is from the August 31st decree and presents the same issues as those in his appeal in 1 Div. 95. The respondents have filed motions to dismiss Boyes' appeals, and also insist in argument, insofar as Boyes' appeals are concerned, that the decrees appealed from should be affirmed (after correction of the August 13th decree so as to tax all costs in the intervention proceeding to Boyes) or the appeals dismissed, because of certain procedural defects. Since the issues presented in Rogers' appeal in 1 Div. 95 (concerning the lawfulness of the plan as embodied in the six agreements) and in respondents' appeal in Div. 95A (questioning the taxing of costs in the intervention proceeding) are in substance the same as those presented in Boyes' appeals, and in view of our conclusion that the decrees appealed from should be affirmed, we see no need of discussing these claimed procedural defects. We shall consider first the question of statutory authority for the City and the Department, respectively, to enter into and carry out the said plan as embodied in the six proposed agreements.