Court Opinion

ID: 9827485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:35:35.401209+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:32.049231
License: Public Domain

On Appellee’s Motion for Rehearing.
In the original disposition of this appeal the judgment was reversed, and judgment rendered for appellant. Subsequently that order was set aside, and the judgment was reversed and the cause remanded, upon a ground which further consideration convinces us is untenable. We have therefore concluded that the original disposition was correct, and that judgment should here be rendered for appellant. It is so ordered.
In its motion for rehearing appellee insisted, under appropriate cross-assignments of error, that its act in subscribing for stock in the warehouse company was ultra vires and beyond the scopd of its corporate purposes, and that therefore its act in executing the obligation herein sued upon, in payment for said stock, was void, and the obligation unenforceable. Appellee corporation was formed and chartered “for the purpose of buying and selling goods, wares, and merchandise of every description, by wholesale and * retail.” It is obvious that under this purpose clause in its charter appellee was not authorized to engage in a cotton warehouse-business, and, if the evidence in this ease had disclosed that in subscribing for stock in the-proposed warehouse corporation appellees thereby sought to enter and pursue the warehouse business, the act would have been be-) yond its corporate objects,' and its obligation to appropriate its corporate funds in payment of the stock would have been void and unenforceable. But the evidence disclosed no such, purpose. On the contrary, it was shown that it subscribed for the stock, not for the purpose of engaging in the warehouse business,, but in order to aid other members of the public in securing the establishment of a much-coveted public warehouse in the town of De-vine, for the benefit of the public generally,, and of appellee and others doing business in. the community. The establishment of the warehouse was looked upon as a greatly rfeedr-ed civic enterprise and improvement, and ap-pellee, along with others in the community,, subscribed for-stock in the proposed corporation in order to secure that improvement, and not to engage in the warehouse business. It now seems to be settled that a corporation, chartered for a particular purpose, may properly subscribe for stock in civic enterprises of this character, regardless of the fact that such enterprise is foreign to the purpose of such corporation, and the latter’s obligation to pay its subscription will be enforced as any other obligation. Anderson v. Kinsolving (Tex. Civ. App.) 262 S. W. 150; McCord Co. v. Hotel Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 287 S. W. 906. Appellee’s cross-assignments of error were-therefore overruled.
Believing the original disposition was correct, appellant’s motion for rehearing is granted, and it is ordered that the judgment of the court below be reversed, and judgment here rendered that appellant recover the-amount of the note in suit, including principal, interest, and attorney’s fees, together with all costs of the litigation. The opinion on appellee’s motion for rehearing is withdrawn.