Court Opinion

ID: 9538389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:35:56.046174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:50.187091
License: Public Domain

*381HENRIOD, Retired Justice
(concurring and dissenting):
Appellants’ Brief, in addressing itself to Point II on appeal, concedes that the directors assessed a per capita $67 for maintenance and operation costs incident to the acquisition of “new” water, by “an averaging of the suggestions” of stockholders at a proper meeting. The appellants joined in and made some of the suggestions, but even so, considered it inequitable and not in conformity with the provisions of Title 73-1-9, Utah Code Annotated, 1953, having to do with shareholders being liable to each other for maintenance and operation based, not on an individual stockholder basis according to class of stock, but on a “share of stock” basis. It does not seem likely that the directors misinterpreted the “equitable” assessment based on the “suggestions” of the shareholders, but, in any event, the trial court thought not. Given the traditional respect we do to the trial court’s conclusion in a debatable situation, together with the facts that the Articles of Incorporation in this case provided for an “equitable” assessment, and that Title 73-1-9, does not expressly prohibit stockholders by agreement to employ an alternative assessment formula, it would seem that the trial court legitimately could be affirmed here, without resort to a remand requiring the court to follow a statute that appears either not to apply in the case, or that reasonably can be interpreted as not being offensive to an alternative method of determining who must pay and in what proportion in the flexible area of corporate-stockholder control. I am of the opinion that the trial court also can be affirmed as to this aspect of the case, and that a remand for further proceedings could be eliminated.
HALL, Justice, concurs in the concurring and dissenting opinion of Retired Justice HENRIOD.
WILKINS, Justice, having disqualified himself, does not participate herein.