Bowen v. Smith, 91-152

Citation838 P.2d 186
Decision Date28 August 1992
Docket NumberNo. 91-152,91-152
PartiesPat BOWEN, Bernard Raymond McGuire, Sr., Irrevocable Trust, Bernard Raymond McGuire, Jr., and Thomas Michael McGuire, Trustees, and Burnett Ranches, A Wyoming Partnership, Appellants (Plaintiffs), v. Thomas S. SMITH, John E. Stanfield and Smith, Stanfield and Scott, A Partnership composed of Thomas S. Smith, John E. Stanfield and John B. Scott, Appellees (Defendants).
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Wyoming

Frank J. Jones, Wheatland, for appellants.

J. Patrick Hand, Douglas, and John B. Speight of Hathaway, Speight, Kunz, Trautwein & Barrett, Cheyenne, for appellees.

Before THOMAS, CARDINE, URBIGKIT * and GOLDEN, JJ., and BROWN, J. (Retired).

URBIGKIT, Justice.

This appeal, in current course of events, presents the third lawsuit in what is now generally designed to be a legal malpractice action. Appellants, as minority shareholders, sued Smith, Stanfield and Scott--the attorneys who represented the majority shareholder and parent corporation after rights against a third party were resolved A melange if not avalanche of charges and counter charges, including sufficiency of the appeal itself, are developed from this record accurately described by a litigant to total not less than fifty pounds of paper.

by a favorable cash settlement, and the shareholders could not then agree on a division of the settlement proceeds. That disagreement was litigated through appeal, Squaw Mountain Cattle Co. v. Bowen, 804 P.2d 1292 (Wyo.1991), with the minority shareholders achieving complete success. During this period of time, the minority shareholders' growing dissatisfaction was manifested by the filing of this lawsuit against the law firm which had secured the settlement in the first of the three proceedings, with the law firm losing the division litigation in the second lawsuit. This third litigative campaign ends in summary judgment favoring the targeted law firm. That conclusion is hereby affirmed.

The superintending issue presented is propriety of the trial court's entry of summary judgment in favor of the law firm or, conversely, existence of material issues of fact precluding that resolution. Cordova v. Gosar, 719 P.2d 625 (Wyo.1986).

I. ISSUES

The game players require identification before the substance of the contended issues is meaningful. In actuality, the present three lawsuits are only a continuation of a course of prior litigation which has been actively pursued since well before 1944. Those cases include, in more specific detail than needs to be related here, the identification of a longstanding course of action and reaction. Anderson v. Wyoming Development Co., 60 Wyo. 417, 154 P.2d 318 (1944); Wheatland Irr. Dist. v. Two Bar-Muleshoe Water Co., 431 P.2d 257 (Wyo.1967); Wheatland Irrigation Dist. v. Two Bar-Muleshoe Water Co., 521 P.2d 1334 (Wyo.1974); State ex rel. Squaw Mountain Cattle Co. v. Wheatland Irr. Dist., 728 P.2d 172 (Wyo.1986); and, finally, Squaw Mountain Cattle Co., 804 P.2d 1292.

Wheatland Irrigation District (Wheatland Irrigation) is a user owned cooperative irrigation system with large farming acreage under cultivation in Platte County, Wyoming and storage facilities located in Albany County, Wyoming. The initiation of all proceedings came with Wheatland Irrigation's effort to acquire water rights and storage capacity. The predecessor in land ownership to Two Bar-Muleshoe Water Company (Swan Land and Cattle Company, Ltd.) was a target of the acquisition activities. In more recent times, Two Bar-Muleshoe Water was owned by a majority shareholder and an associative group of individuals as minority shareholders. The "majority shareholder" was Squaw Mountain Cattle Company (Squaw Mountain), essentially owned and managed by Springer Jones and his family. The Bowen-McGuire group are the "minority shareholders."

Springer Jones, an Albany County rancher, on behalf of Squaw Mountain employed the Laramie, Wyoming law firm of Smith, Stanfield and Scott (law firm) to further litigatively challenge Wheatland Irrigation for contended breach of contractual rights resulting from earlier courses of litigation. It was determined that the essential cause of action was held by Two Bar-Muleshoe Water as the corporation. By agreement of all shareholders, the law firm employed by Springer Jones undertook in the name of the parent entity, at the sole expense of the majority shareholder, to seek redress against Wheatland Irrigation. After an arduous effort totaling six years in litigative pursuit, a satisfactory and even very successful recovery was obtained by settlement after an intermediate first appeal, State ex rel. Squaw Mountain Cattle Co., 728 P.2d 172, in 1988. The majority and minority shareholders came to a serious dispute through another lawsuit about division of proceeds. That suit ultimately resulted in final decision by this court on a pro-rated shareholder basis for division. Squaw Mountain Cattle Co., 804 P.2d 1292. The minority shareholders, while the division litigation was still ongoing, then sued the law firm in a third lawsuit. It is that lawsuit which now comes to this court following entry of summary judgment by

the trial court. Appellants (minority shareholders) state their issues:

A. Are there genuine issues of material fact which preclude the granting of Summary Judgment?

B. Are Plaintiffs' claims barred by the doctrine of res judicata?

C. Are Plaintiffs' claims barred by the doctrines of estoppel and waiver?

D. Are attorney's fees incurred in an action which was necessitated by the wrongful acts and conduct of Defendants recoverable as damages?

Appellees (law firm), injected with considerable emotion, restate the issues:

A. Is the Appellants' (hereafter "Non-Clients") appeal subject to dismissal and denial for failure to comply with the Wyoming Rules of Appellate Procedure?

B. Did an Attorney-Client relationship exist between the Non-Clients and the Attorneys?

C. If an Attorney-Client relationship existed between Non-Clients and the Attorneys, was a duty created; was that duty breached; was the alleged breach "the cause" of the Non-Clients['] damages; were the Non-Clients damaged at all; or, are the damages they now seek to recover the direct and proximate cause of the actions of their President, Springer Jones; the majority stockholder of Two Bar, (Squaw), all of which were previously resolved in Squaw Mountain v. Bowen, (804 P.2d 1292, Wyo.1991) (hereafter "the Grant case"); or, simply the attorney's fees and costs which every litigant must bear in resolving disputes through litigation?

D. Under the pronounced Rules of the Wyoming Supreme Court, was Summary Judgment in this case not only proper, but required.

II. SUMMARY OF DECISION

This court affirms the trial court in lacking a desire to send the laundry out to wash one more time than is necessary. We agree with the trial court's decision by our determination that a claim was not stated. We find the law firm was not representing the minority shareholders and violated no fiduciary relationship to them in continuing to represent the initial client after the disagreement about division of settlement proceeds developed. 1 Settlement with Wheatland Irrigation ended both representation of the parent corporation and assertable responsibility for either it or the minority shareholders during the continued course of this present litigative odyssey.

Despite the high level of acrimony and histrionics documented for this appeal, we concur with the trial court's decision on the dispositive issue presented that there was no material conflict in evidence precluding summary judgment for a legal issue resolution of the minority shareholders' claims. The parent corporation was faithfully and fully represented by the law firm through the Wheatland Irrigation litigation, and to a very successful settlement. The dispute thereafter was either a new ball game or a different inning where, lacking agreement, the parties litigated and the courts resolved.

III. FACTS SIGNIFICANT FOR THIS DECISION

As casually recognized earlier, disputes between Two Bar-Muleshoe Water and In that process, the present law firm was employed by Squaw Mountain. That law firm, one of the more experienced trial firms in Wyoming, was asked to take on a further chapter in this major Two Bar-Muleshoe Water effort in behalf of the majority shareholder. The record is clear that the minority shareholders in Squaw Mountain were advised and concurred in the continued effort provided that the majority shareholder remain totally obligated to (and did) compensate the law firm for fees and expenses incurred.

                Wheatland Irrigation had a long and almost intractable Wyoming litigative history.  The history goes back to about May 15, 1883 when the predecessor to Wheatland Irrigation commenced its development of the Platte County project and continued through a 1912 water rights adjudication.  See Anderson, 154 P.2d 318.   This court's determinations in earlier litigation involving the Albany County storage project had not ended water supply disputes.  In 1983 or thereabouts, Springer Jones as the principal in Squaw Mountain, the majority shareholder in Two Bar-Muleshoe Water as the parent corporation, decided to try again by litigation against Wheatland Irrigation to re-establish rights of water and compensation
                

After an active course of litigation, which is the history of Wheatland Irrigation, a settlement was achieved calling for payment of $1,250,000 by Wheatland Irrigation to the parent corporation. The record may be in some dispute as to exactly what advice was furnished to the minority shareholders, but there is no dispute that some of the minority shareholders were also members of the Wheatland Irrigation District. In any event, the settlement was completely acceptable. Unfortunately, the majority shareholder desired in large part the fruits of its litigative victory and the minority shareholders (appellants) strongly disagreed...

To continue reading

Request your trial
14 cases
  • Lynch v. Norton Const., Inc.
    • United States
    • Wyoming Supreme Court
    • 25 d1 Outubro d1 1993
    ...purview of jury deliberation. See, e.g., Hill v. Park County By and Through Bd. of County Comm'rs, 856 P.2d 456 (Wyo.1993); Bowen v. Smith, 838 P.2d 186 (Wyo.1992); Hozian v. Weathermon, 821 P.2d 1297 (Wyo.1991); Allmaras v. Mudge, 820 P.2d 533 (Wyo.1991). Our approach is consistent with th......
  • In re Estate of Drwenski
    • United States
    • Wyoming Supreme Court
    • 28 d3 Janeiro d3 2004
    ...held that an attorney/client relationship is the essential element for the maintenance of a legal malpractice lawsuit. In Bowen v. Smith, 838 P.2d 186, 198 (Wyo.1992) we held attorneys for a corporation and its majority shareholder who undertook litigation to recover money for the corporati......
  • Calene v. State
    • United States
    • Wyoming Supreme Court
    • 5 d5 Fevereiro d5 1993
    ...the words of a distinguished jurist, "however, I do not agree with the packaging of the majority opinion for publication." Bowen v. Smith, 838 P.2d 186, 197 (Wyo.1992), Brown, Ret. J., The issue before the court is simple. In defendant's motion for a new trial, he raised specific allegation......
  • Fisher v. The Grove Farm Co.
    • United States
    • Hawaii Court of Appeals
    • 29 d2 Dezembro d2 2009
    ...were not entitled to maintain a legal malpractice claim against an attorney who represented the corporation); Bowen v. Smith, 838 P.2d 186, 194-96 (Wyo.1992) (holding that a law firm retained by a corporation to litigate a dispute may not be liable to a minority shareholder for favoring the......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT