Court Opinion

ID: 9828613
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:33:23.257141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:51.052999
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
We have carefully considered the appel-lees’ motion for rehearing and read with interest the able argument of appellees’ counsel in support of the motion, but we yet think the judgment should be reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial. It is to be remembered that 'this is not a suit on the part of the Mooringsport Oil Company to establish a trust and seek to avail itself of the benefits, if any, of the trade by its president, but a suit on the part of the appellees against the company to recover commissions upon an alleged sale of stock owned by the company and for its benefit, and while there may seem to be force in appellees’ present contention that the fact that the stock actually conveyed to Barlow is in its nature evidentiary rather than vital as an issue, yet under the circumstances of this case we think appellant was entitled, to a specific finding upon any controverted issue that would tend to make more certain its defense that its president was .acting in his own interest and for his own benefit alone. This seems particularly true in view of the fact that the stock actually transferred to Barlow was stock issued by the president and secretary in the name of the company. The jury might readily therefrom find, as they did, that the trade as finally made was by Mooring as agent and manager of said oil company. It may be furthermore said that it can hardly be contended with reason that, by virtue of its charter, or otherwise, does the record disclose a power in the president of the corporation to make a contract for the company, and bind it as a trading corporation to purchase real estate and assume the payment of debts operating as a lien thereon.
We conclude on the whole that the motion for rehearing should be overruled; and it is so ordered.