Court Opinion

ID: 9676128
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:15:40.312124+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:44.275049
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING

Appellee, Billy Don Higginbotham, in his Motion for Rehearing, challenges, factually, our holding that there was no evidence of an agreement that he was obliged to share the business losses of REG Enterprises. Higginbotham cites eight documents, consisting of contracts, a promissory note, a guaranty agreement, a bond, and applications for credit and insurance to support his contention that there was evidence that he was a partner or part owner of the business. Additionally, Higginbotham offers several excerpts of testimony in which Higginbotham’s co-ownership of, or partnership in, the business was discussed. We are unable to agree that there is a scintilla of evidence of the requisite agreement to share the losses of the business.
As to an express agreement between Higginbotham and Grimmett to share in any operational results of the business, the only evidence was the terse testimony of Higginbotham that they had originally agreed to divide the profits when the company began to make money, which apparently never occurred; the record is silent as to the *4terms of such agreement. ' Furthermore, Higginbotham admitted at another point in his testimony that he never “... discuss[ed] any type of particular arrangement ... as far as showing profits or losses in the business”. (Emphasis added.)
As to sharing losses, there was no evidence of an express agreement to share losses. Throughout his relationship with REG, Higginbotham was compensated for his services by fixed weekly wages, totally unaffected by realized profits or losses. There was no evidence that Higginbotham personally paid, or, was ever asked to pay, any sum of money to any of the individuals or institutions referred to in the cited documents or the testimony above referenced in Higginbotham’s Motion for Rehearing. REG’s business records reflect that business losses were sustained during much of its brief history. Grimmett absorbed these losses, Higginbotham did not. Thus, there being no express agreement to share losses, and absent evidence that the parties, by their words or conduct, impliedly recognized that Higginbotham had some obligation in fact to pay any part of REG’s business losses, we are unable to agree that there was a scintilla of evidence of an agreement to share losses.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.