Court Opinion

ID: 9669048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:38:25.806997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:51.849770
License: Public Domain

*254On Motion for Rehearing.
POPE, Justice.
Appellees’ motion for rehearing is overruled. Most of the motion is devoted to argument that the Austin Court of Civil Appeals has already passed on the matter of dividends that were owing to Morrison. The Austin Court expressly states the contrary [274 S.W.2d 567] : “The question of dividends was severed in the court below for separate trial and appellant did not complain there and does not complain here that such severance was erroneous or prejudicial and such question is not before us and we make no speculation concerning it.”
Appellees urge also that the Austin Court has already awarded Morrison his dividends or earnings by requiring the additur of $20,952.62. Again, as the Austin Court states, that sum was added to “the option price of appellant’s stock” as the value of certain omitted items in computing the stock value. The Court was concerned with the exercise of the option, stock values and ownership. The required tender was for the deficiency in the option price of stock and concerned stock value only. It did not concern dividends.
Morrison was entitled to two things, (1) dividends on his stock and (2) the value of the stock upon the exercise of the option. By agreement of the parties, the power to compute the value of the stock was vested in an auditor. The prescribed formula required him to multiply the average earnings by three. The Austin Court in passing on value, of course, looked to dividends under the formula for fixing stock values. But no court has ordered the payment of dividends as such. The Austin Court awarded Morrison his stock values computed on the dividend formula. Morrison’s right to dividends is an entirely distinct matter which appellees confuse with stock values.