Opinion ID: 1748512
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alter EgoDisregarding Corporate Entities

Text: At the outset, the lot owners are met with the separate ownerships of the properties by various corporations. The deeds to the properties came from the Eagle Rock Corporation, and the lot owners seek easements over land which stood in the name of the Venetian Blind Company and Conso Realty Company, and land leased to the Eagle Rock Ranch Club Corporation. It is elementary that one corporation cannot dedicate land owned by another or grant easements over land not owned by it. Robbins v. Houck, 251 S.W.2d 429 (Tex. Civ.App.1952, writ refused, n.r.e.). If the lot owners cannot pierce the corporate veil, they cannot recover here. This Court held in Pace Corporation v. Jackson, 155 Tex. 179, 284 S.W.2d 340 (1955), that: Courts will not disregard the corporation fiction and hold individual officers, directors or stockholders liable on the obligations of a corporation except where it appears that the individuals are using the corporate entity as a sham to perpetrate a fraud, to avoid personal liability, avoid the effect of a statute, or in a few other exceptional situations. [284 S.W.2d at 351] There were no pleadings of fraud, as such, in this case or that the corporations were used as a sham, to justify wrongs, or to avoid personal responsibility. There were no pleadings that the corporations were the alter ego of James. The Venetian Blind Company, in whose name the title to the ranch stood for approximately two years, was not made a party. We shall, however, for purposes of this opinion assume, without deciding, that the Venetian Blind Company, Conso Realty Company, the Eagle Rock Corporation, and the Eagle Rock Ranch Club Corporation were the same as Edward James; that they were his alter ego. Our decision shall rest, then, upon the rights, or lack of them, which the lot owners got or failed to get, under the statutes and decisions of this State dealing with the conveyance of real property.