Bass v. Daetwyler

• Decision Date: 24 September 1957
• Docket Number: No. 7553,7553
• Parties: Claude BASS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ben DAETWYLER, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 339

305 S.W.2d 339

Claude BASS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ben DAETWYLER, Defendant-Respondent.

No. 7553.

Springfield Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Sept. 24, 1957.

Motion for Rehearing or to Transfer Overruled Oct. 8, 1957.

Jim Poynor, Joplin, for plaintiff-appellant.

Combs & Combs, Lamar, for defendant-respondent.

STONE, Judge.

In this action for a partnership accounting, plaintiff, Claude Bass, appeals from the judgment of $229.10 entered in his favor against defendant, Ben Daetwyler. Plaintiff and defendant admittedly entered into an oral partnership agreement on April 30, 1953, 'to continue for one year from said date.' The business of the partnership encompassed 'raising and selling eggs, turkeys, cattle, sheep, hogs and feed,' but the major activity was in turkeys and turkey eggs. Defendant furnished his farm near Lamar, Missouri, 'and the equipment that was out there' when the partnership was formed. Plaintiff 'was to do all the work' and 'after all expenses were paid' the profits were to be divided equally. We find no evidence of sharp controversy or serious dispute between the partners prior to June, 1954, when the partnership operation was terminated (several weeks after the end of the contemplated one-year term) by sales of 'between $5,500 and $6,000 worth of turkeys' and about '$1,900 worth of eggs.' However, plaintiff and his family thereafter continued to occupy a four-room house on defendant's farm for three or four months; and, for reasons not developed in the record, feeling was engendered which resulted (as defendant said) in plaintiff's warning that 'if I (defendant) would come on (the farm) he was going to whip me every time he saw me.'

In his petition filed on August 19, 1954, plaintiff stated that he held $821.80 belonging to the partnership but that defendant, who had kept all partnership rocords, had made no accounting 'although the operational profit is in excess of $13,000.' In his answer, defendant averred that the net partnership income had been $3,725.18, but that plaintiff had received substantially more than his half of such income and was indebted to defendant in the sum of $914.03. Defendant also sought 'damages' aggregating $1,000 on certain claims which we pass without discussion because defendant has not appealed from the judgment of the trial court which disallowed those claims, except for $90 charged to plaintiff for his occupancy of the house on defendant's farm after termination of the partnership. By agreement of the parties, the trial court appointed Gordon R. Boyer, Esq., as referee to take evidence and report his findings and recommendations. In due time, the referee's report was filed, all exceptions thereto were overruled, the report was approved and confirmed in its entirety, and judgment was entered in accordance therewith.

The partners were the only witnesses at the hearing before the referee. Defendant frankly stated that 'all the business end of it (the partnership) I was to do,' readily conceded that he had opened no bank account for the partnership, and quickly agreed that he had only one personal bank account in which individual and partnership funds had been commingled. At the outset of the hearing, it was stipulated that 'the gross income of the partnership was $27,274.24.' Defendant then testified at length concerning the 'inventory used' or capital furnished by him to the partnership and concerning the unmerous items of alleged partnership expense claimed to have been paid or assumed by him. Most of these expense items were evidence by one hundred fifty-five cancelled checks drawn on defendant's bank account and offered as exhibits, but a few of those items had been (so defendant said) paid in cash or assumed by him. Plaintiff's brief direct examination pertained only to certain claims by defendant which were disallowed.

The referee and the trial court found the net profit of the partnership to have been $6,466.66 by deducting, from the gross partnership income of $27,274.24, (a) 'inventory used' or capital of the aggregate value of $748.08 furnished by defendant to the partnership, (b) expense items aggregating $19,412.32 evidenced by cancelled checks, and (c) expense items aggregating $647.18 paid in cash or assumed by defendant. Against plaintiff's half of the net profit, to-wit, $3,233.33, the referee and the trial court made charges aggregating $2,853.33, including (a) $1,927.53 which, as was stipulated, plaintiff 'has drawn,' (b) $821.80 of partnership funds admittedly held by plaintiff, (c) $7 for one old turkey and $7 for two used tires concededly used by plaintiff personally, and (d) $90 for plaintiff's occupancy of the house on defendant's farm after termination of the partnership. Thus arriving at a balance of $380 owing to plaintiff, the trial court further charged plaintiff with one-half of the costs or $150.90, and entered judgment for him in the sum of $229.10.

Plaintiff's first complaint on appeal is that the 'inventory used' or capital furnished by defendant should not have been deducted from the gross income of the partnership because (a) there was no evidence of an express agreement 'that the inventory should be replaced' and (b) there was no competent evidence 'as to cost or the reasonable market value of the items charged,' i.e., 500 poults, 300 bushels of oats, 3 old turkeys and 2 sheep. However, in the absence of an agreement of the contrary, capital furnished by defendant was a debt owing by the firm to him, which should have been paid before profits were determined and distributed; ¹ and, in view of the liberality of our courts in permitting the owner of personal property to testify as to its value, defendant's testimony as to the cost or the value of each item of the 'inventory' clearly was admissible ² and, being acceptable to the trier of the facts, supported his finding (approved by us) that defendant's capital contributions to the partnership were of the aggregate value of $748.08. We cannot honor plaintiff's contention that, in any event, defendant should receive only his actual cost of acquisition, prior to formation of the partnership, of $300 bushels of oats contributed to the partnership. The referee properly credited defendant with the reasonable market value of the oats at the time of contribution, i.e., when the partnership was formed. Compare Baum v. McBride, 152 Neb. 152, 40 N.W.2d 649, 652-653(6). Contrast Filbrun v. Ivers, 92 Mo. 388, 4 S.W. 674, where one partner sought to profit by purchase of a note endorsed by the partnership.

Plaintiff also assigns error in the admission into evidence of one hundred forty-two of the one hundred fifty-five cancelled checks offered by defendant, ³ and in the allowance, as partnership expenses, of all of the payments evidence by those checks, excepting only items aggregating $123.85. Although other objections (some of which will be noted, infra) were made to certain of the cancelled checks, the principal objection repeatedly interposed by plaintiff was that invoices or 'paid statements' were not attached to the checks; and, plaintiff's primary insistence here is that, therefore, the checks 'were not the best evidence of the matter sought to be proved' and constituted nothing more than 'speculative and conjectural' evidence.

Defendant was entitled to reimbursement (by credit in the partnership accounting) for all payments made and obligations personally incurred by him in the ordinary and proper operation of the firm business. ⁴ But, with respect to each item for which defendant sought credit, his problem of proof was two-fold, namely, (1) to establish his payment (or his personal obligation for payment) of such item, and (2) to show that such item was incurred in the ordinary and proper operation of the firm business or, as otherwise stated, was property chargeable as partnership expense. Since any evidence (not excluded by some rule of policy or principle of law) tending to make the proposition of payment either more or less probable was competent, ⁵ defendant's cancelled checks clearly were relevant and admissible upon the issue of payment. ⁶ And, upon that issue, they were not rendered inadmissible simply because they were not accompanied by invoices or 'paid statements,' particularly in view of the fact that even 'paid statements' from third parties (in effect, receipts) would have been merely hearsay declarations and would not have been competent evidence of the payments purportedly acknowledged thereby. ⁷

Of course, whether the payments evidenced by defendant's cancelled checks were for items properly chargeable as partnership expenses was not established by the checks themselves, but rather depended upon defendant's credibility and the weight and value of his oral testimony concerning the items for which the checks were issued. Even where determination of factual issues in court-tried actions for accounting depends upon conflicting verbal evidence, our appellate courts point out that due deference should be accorded to findings of the trier of the facts. ⁸ A fortiori, with instant defendant's oral testimony concerning the items allowed as partnership expenses standing uncontradicted in any material particular, it would be a work of superarrogation for us to reject the factual findings of the able and conscientious referee, insofar as they are bottomed upon his acceptance of, and are conformable to, such uncontradicted testimony. Having nevertheless carefully considered the entire record (including the numerous exhibits) in the discharge of our duty to review the case de novo [McKinley v. Durbin, Mo.App., 231 S.W.2d 286, 290(5)], we accept and adopt the factual findings of the referee, as incorporated in the judgment of the trial court, with respect to all items of partnership expense for which defendant was allowed credit, excepting only the following:

1. There was no evidentiary basis for allocation and allowance, as a partnership expense, of...