Opinion ID: 1738103
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Chancellor applied an erroneous legal standard and erred as a matter of law by denying Dr. Hensarling ownership of the accounts receivable which formed a portion of the value of Dr. Songcharoen's 500 shares of stock in Jackson Arthritic Clinic and Osteoporosis Center, P.A.

Text: ¶ 13. In this assignment of error, Hensarling claims that the Chancellor, in disbursing the disputed escrow money to the physicians, erroneously denied him the accounts receivable for which he had already been ordered to pay Songcharoen when he bought her stock in the corporation. At the end of 1997, the physicians had earned over $800,000 in collected fees from patients and drug studies which were being held in escrow until the dispute between the two could be resolved. The Chancellor ordered that this be paid in accordance with the corporation's long-standing method of paying expenses and disbursing income-based on each physician's individual collections. Apparently, that $800,000 in collected fees may have included some or all of the $110,000 in accounts receivable considered by Anderson when he valued the business as of February of 1997. Therefore, Hensarling claims that the Chancellor should have either reduced the value of the stock by half of the erroneously considered accounts receivable or allowed Hensarling to maintain ownership, possession and control of the accounts receivable (in the form of the collected amount) that the Chancellor had ordered him to purchase. ¶ 14. We find Hensarling's assignments of error to be meritorious. Since, however, it is impossible to determine from the records how much of the accounts receivable were actually collected and disbursed to the physicians, we conclude that a just result in this case is to order a remittitur in the amount of half of the accounts receivable considered in the valuation of the company. Miss.Code Ann. § 11-1-51 (1991) allows for a remittitur if trier of fact has awarded damages that are contrary to the overwhelming weight of credible evidence. The Chancellor's two orders in this case permit Songcharoen to receive a value for the corporation based, at least in part, on accounts receivable, which she later received in disbursements. A remittitur has the effect of allowing Hensarling to buy Songcharoen's interest in the corporation, without requiring him to pay for accounts receivable which may have been disbursed to her in the later order.