Court Opinion

ID: 7811490
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:13:21.445034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:29.082166
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING. McCulloch, C. J., Appellants contend that, according to the evidence, the additional leases obtained by Wingfield were not turned over to the corporation, but that they received the additional stock in the corporation as a bonus for promoting the organization. It is not shown by the evidence with any degree of certainty that the additional leases (30,000 acres) have been withheld from the corporation — at least the intention of Wingfield and his associates to withhold them. Mr. Bonnie Davis, the only witness who testified on the subject, merely stated his understanding to be that the record disclosed that the Columbia County Development Company was still holding the leases. The offer to prove the admission of Mr. Harrington, the secretary of the South Arkansas Oil & Gas Company, was properly rejected, for such evidence was not competent. In order to sustain the charge in this respect, appellants should have shown that the additional stock was issued to Wingfield without consideration, and that the additional leases were being withheld from the corporation to deprive the stockholders of the benefits, arising from the ownership by the corporation of these leases. If the leases are wrongfully withheld by the Columbia Development Company (the co-partnership controlled, as alleged, by Wingfield) the corporation itself as well as its stockholders have an appropriate remedy to compel the assignment of those leases to the corporation. But appellants are not entitled to cancel his lease and withdraw from the corporation merely because Wingfield and his associates are. guilty of wrongdoing in withholding leases which should rightfully go to the corporation in accordance with the plan of the stockholders on its organization. On reconsideration of the evidence, we are of the opinion that our former conclusion on each feature of the case was correct. Petition denied.