Spruill v. Spruill

• Decision Date: 28 October 1981
• Docket Number: No. 6978,6978
• Citation: 624 S.W.2d 694
• Parties: Lawrence Wayne SPRUILL and Larry Spruill Company, Inc., Appellants, v. Diane SPRUILL, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 694

624 S.W.2d 694

Lawrence Wayne SPRUILL and Larry Spruill Company, Inc., Appellants, v. Diane SPRUILL, Appellee.

No. 6978.

Court of Appeals of Texas, El Paso.

Oct. 28, 1981.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 25, 1981.

Law Office of Bill Alexander, Bill Alexander, John L. Barnhill, Shafer, Gilliland, Davis, McCollum & Ashley, P.C., Tryon D. Lewis, Odessa, for appellants.

Hirsch & Bartley, H. Thomas Hirsch, W. R. Barnes, Odessa, for appellee.

Before STEPHEN F. PRESLAR, C. J., and WARD and OSBORN, JJ.

OPINION

WARD, Justice.

The husband appeals the property division from a divorce suit. Trial was to a jury and based on the verdict rendered, the Court entered the divorce and property division. We affirm the judgment of the trial Court.

The parties were married in August, 1966, and had two children. In February, 1977, the wife, Diane Spruill, filed her suit for divorce against her husband and joined as a party Defendant the husband's primary corporation, the Larry Spruill Company, Inc. The husband owned forty-eight percent of the capital stock of this company before his marriage and after marriage acquired the balance of the shares of capital stock by purchasing them with community funds. The evidence reveals that the husband was a successful mobile home dealer, the dealership being owned by the corporation. In addition to selling mobile homes, the husband had a fifty percent stock ownership in four other corporations which manufactured or sold apparatus in connection with mobile homes which he designed. The husband, for a substantial number of years prior to the divorce trial, had operated solely out of the Larry Spruill Company, Inc., or out of another of his corporations for all of his ordinary living expenses. The home where the parties lived was owned by the corporation and all of the motor vehicles, furniture and other assets, normally associated with being acquired by the community estate, were in fact owned by a corporate entity. The husband even paid for the food and other necessities of life from a corporate account. According to the husband's testimony, about the time that the divorce suit was filed, his business, from being very successful, took a turn for the worse. Thus, in December, 1976, he filed a financial statement with an Odessa bank showing that he and his wife had a net worth of approximately $400,000.00. On January 1, 1977, and again in 1978, the husband executed several promissory notes in the approximate amount of $285,000.00 to his business partner in New Orleans and pledged all of the stock in all of the various companies as security. Further, according to the husband's version, the promissory note indebtedness finally came to the total sum of $358,000.00 by June of 1978, and in July, 1979, the partner filed suit in New Orleans to foreclose on all of the corporate stocks that the husband and wife owned, and after he obtained judgment this completely wiped out the community estate. Finally, according to the husband, the community thus lost the house, the furniture, all of the mobile home inventory, all monies, the motor vehicles, and every other conceivable community asset. After the foreclosure by the partner, the husband was then hired by the partner to continue acting as president of Larry Spruill Company, Inc., at a salary of $1,000.00 a month and, according to the husband, the partner still remained his friend, although he had impoverished both the husband, the wife, and the children. During this time, the husband executed a second lien note and deed of trust to the First National Bank of Odessa covering the home in question. Also during these proceedings, the husband left his wife and children and moved in with his girl friend.

The judgment entered granted the wife the divorce, awarded custody of the children to the wife, awarded to her the sum of $7,000.00 in cash which was in the registry of the Court, awarded to her the cash surrender value of all life insurance policies as described in the evidence and, in addition, the sum of $30,000.00 cash to be paid by the husband together with legal interest thereon from the date of the divorce judgment.

The Court further found and determined that Larry Spruill Company, Inc. and Lawrence Wayne Spruill were one and the same; that the Defendant corporation became the alter ego of the husband; and that the notes executed by the husband in favor of his partner and the pledging of the corporate stock of the various corporations were all done by the husband to create a false community debt with the intent to defraud the wife of her community interest in the stock. Based on this, the husband's interest, if any, in the corporate stock of the Larry Spruill Company, Inc. and the four other subsidiary corporations was awarded to the wife; the wife and the minor children were awarded the sole use and occupancy of the home, together with all household goods, furniture, and furnishing and equipment located therein, insofar as any interest of the husband and the Larry Spruill Company, Inc. were concerned; and finally, all corporate records and all personal property, of whatever nature of the Larry Spruill Company, Inc. and other corporations, were awarded to her.

This brings us to a point where we can consider the status of this appeal. In the first place, the Defendant, the Larry Spruill Company, Inc., has not appealed the judgment of the trial Court. Though the husband's brief refers to the corporation as an Appellant, the corporation did not file an appeal bond. Thus, the judgment as to the corporation is final and this Court has acquired no...