Snyder v. Lassen
Snyder v. Lassen
Opinion of the Court
OPINION ON REHEARING
The opinion of the court was delivered by
For reasons which appeared sufficient to the court, appellant’s motion for a rehearing was granted. The cause was again briefed and argued at length, and upon further exhaustive consideration our first judgment of affirmance announced in 156 Kan. 230, 132 P. 2d 624, is adhered to.
Included in the motion for a rehearing was a request that in the event of a reaffirmance we should interpret the trial court’s finding of fact and conclusion of law which pertain to an offer of defendant Beachy to erect a trust fund for the benefit of the minor heirs of Lichty out of a proportionate increase of the assets of the Snyder Ice Cream Company accruing to the 135 shares of stock acquired by him, which was the crucial issue in this litigation. But this matter is still pending in the district court; nobody is complaining about it; and clearly it is not now open to appellate review. (Wideman v. Faivre, 100 Kan. 102, 108, 163 Pac. 619.)
The judgment is reaffirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting): Plaintiff brought this action on behalf of the corporation, primarily against Lichty as the principal stock
Plaintiff was only indirectly concerned with the issue of whether Lichty’s administrator or Beachy was. the owner of the stock. In a replevin suit the parties would have had a right to a jury trial. I think the court should have permitted that issue to have been tried by a jury either in the replevin action or as .a separate issue in this action.
If the court retained that- question for trial as being one involved in the suit in equity, then I think a wrong result was reached. One who holds property as a pledge for debt ordinarily should be satisfied to have his debt paid. To justify a claim that Beachy’s status as it related to the stock had been changed from that of pledgee to owner required clear and convincing evidence. I recognize it was the trial court’s function to determine whether the evidence on that
Perhaps I could overlook that if it were not for the fact that I am convinced from this record a decidedly inequitable result was reached. Lichty’s real indebtedness to Beachy was about $17,000; his indebtedness to the corporation was about $12,000. In the last trial of this case the court found the book value of the 135 shares of stock, the ownership of which was in controversy, was more than $53,000. It is true the value of that stock had been enhanced somewhat by the proceeds of a life insurance policy which the corporation carried on the life of Lichty, but even deducting that, the book value of the stock was as much as $18,000 or $20,000 more than Lichty’s indebtedness to Beachy and to the corporation. The result of the affirmance of this judgment is to deprive Lichty’s administrator and those entitled to a distributive share of his estate of a substantial sum which in equity they should have.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.