Hatchell v. Wren

• Decision Date: 30 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. 05-91.,05-91.
• Citation: 211 S.W.3d 516
• Parties: Vickie HATCHELL, Appellant, v. Dwight WREN, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

211 S.W.3d 516

Vickie HATCHELL, Appellant, v. Dwight WREN, Appellee.

No. 05-91.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

June 30, 2005.

Gardner Law Firm, by: Charles J. Gardner, Blytheville, for appellant.

Reid, Burge, Prevallet & Coleman, by: Richard A. Reid, Blytheville, for appellee.

DONALD L. CORBIN, Justice.

Appellant Vickie Hatchell appeals the order of the Mississippi County Circuit Court granting summary judgment to Appellee Dwight Wren. The facts are that while Appellant was visiting Appellee's home, Appellee backed his car into her car, causing damage. Appellee agreed to have the car repaired and return it to Appellant, who lived in Oklahoma at the time. Appellee had the car repaired at his expense, in the amount of $4,844.54. He then met Appellant and her husband at a location in central Arkansas and delivered the car to them. Sometime later, Appellant received a check for the amount of the repairs from Appellee's insurer. Instead of reimbursing Appellee for the repair bill, however, Appellant cashed the check and kept the money. Appellee filed suit against her for conversion and unjust enrichment. Along with the complaint, Appellee served Appellant with eight requests for admission. Appellant did not timely respond, and the requests were deemed admitted, pursuant to Ark. R. Civ. P. 36. Appellant argued that two of the requests were improper requests of law, not fact. The trial court granted summary judgment to Appellee, based on the admitted requests, and Appellant appeals. Our jurisdiction of this appeal is pursuant to Ark. Sup.Ct. R. 1-2(b)(5), as it presents an issue requiring further development of the law. We affirm.

For her first point, Appellant asserts that the trial court erred in relying on the seventh and eighth requests for admission, as she asserts that they impermissibly sought only bare conclusions of law. To better understand this issue, we set out all the requests for admission:

1. Your 2001 Dodge Intrepid was damaged in the summer of 2003 while at the residence of the Plaintiff, Dwight Wren.

2. The 2001 Dodge Intrepid referred to was repaired and, after repaired, was delivered to you.

3. No complaints concerning the repair were offered or made by you at the time of delivery of the vehicle to you.

4. Subsequent to acceptance of the repaired vehicle, you received a check in the amount of $4,844.54.

5. The check referred to, from Columbia Mutual Insurance Company for $4,844.54, was cashed and the money retained by you.

6. You have refused to deliver the funds from the cashing of the check mentioned above to the Plaintiff, Dwight Wren.

7. You were not entitled to the funds represented by the check of $4,844.54.

8. You are indebted to Dwight Wren in the sum of $4,844.54.

Rule 36(a) provides that each requested admission will be deemed admitted if the party to whom they are addressed does not timely file a written answer or objection to them. The rule reflects in pertinent part:

The matter is admitted unless, within 30 days after service of the request, the party to whom the request is directed serves upon the party requesting the admission a written answer or objection addressed to the matter, signed by the party or by his attorney. However, a defendant shall have 30 days after service of the request or 45 days after he has been served with the summons and complaint to answer, whichever time is longer. These time periods may be shortened or lengthened by the court.

Appellant does not dispute that she failed to file written answers or objections to the requests within the time prescribed in Rule 36. Nor does she take issue with the fact that the trial court ruled that the matters were deemed admitted, except as to the seventh and eighth admissions. She argues that those two requests asked for bare conclusions of law, not for admissions of fact. She relies on the court of appeals' decision in In the Matter of Adoption of Dailey, 30 Ark.App. 8, 784 S.W.2d 782 (1989).

In Dailey, the appellant birth mother claimed that she had only consented to the adoption of her child to the appellees under fraud and duress. The appellees filed sixteen requests for admission. Request number two asked the appellant to admit that she was "not acting under duress, fraud or under misrepresentation at the time [she] executed the Consent to Adopt," and request number sixteen asked her to admit "that it would be in the best interests of the minor child that this adoption be granted." Id. at 10, 784 S.W.2d at 783. The appellant did not timely answer the requests, and the trial court ruled that they were deemed admitted. Relying on the second and sixteenth requests, the trial court granted summary judgment to the appellees. The court of appeals reversed, holding:

Requests for admissions are generally considered to be designed to ascertain an adversary's position, and are not discovery devices to ascertain relevant facts. The purpose of the rule is to facilitate trial by weeding out facts about which there is no true controversy but which are often difficult or expensive to prove.

Although the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure allow for a request for an admission which concerns the application of law to fact, Ark. R. Civ. P. 36(a), admissions designed to directly discover what legal conclusions the opposing attorney intends to draw from those facts are improper. An element of the burden of proof, or even the ultimate issue in the case may be addressed in a request for admission under Rule 36, and the admission of these matters may not be avoided because the request calls for application of the facts to the law, the truth of an ultimate issue, or opinion or conclusion so long as the opinion called for is not on an abstract proposition of law. It is the concession of the issue, otherwise determinable by the trier of fact, which comes into evidence, not the assumptions of the party who makes the admission. A request for admission of a pure matter of law is improper.

Id. at 10-11, 784 S.W.2d at 783 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).

We agree with the reasoning expounded by the court of appeals in Dailey, and we conclude that holding is controlling of the issue in this case. Here, as in Dailey, the requests called for bare conclusions of law. They asked Appellant to admit that she was not "entitled" to the insurance proceeds and that she was "indebted" to Appellant for the amount of the proceeds. Whether one is entitled to property or indebted to another is purely an issue of law. Rule 36(a) provides that requests for admission are limited to discoverable matters "that relate to statements or opinions of fact or the application of law to fact[.]" Requests numbers seven and eight neither called for statements or opinions of fact nor the application of law to fact. It was thus error for the trial court to have viewed them as admissions.

Notwithstanding our conclusion that these requests called for pure admissions of law, we affirm the trial court's grant of summary judgment, as the remaining admissions left no issue of material fact in dispute. This court has held that the failure to properly answer requests for admission does not, in and of itself, authorize or require the entry of summary judgment in favor of the party requesting admissions; however, if the trial court deems the requests to have been admitted, it may grant summary judgment if no material issue of fact is left to be determined. See Phoenix of Hartford v. Coney, 249 Ark. 447, 459 S.W.2d 558 (1970); Universal Life Ins. Co. v. Howlett, 240 Ark. 458, 400 S.W.2d 294 (1966).

At the conclusion of the hearing below, the trial court made its ruling from the bench:

[T]here appears to be no dispute as to any facts whatsoever. That an accident occurred. That the vehicle was damaged. That the plaintiff paid for the repairs to the vehicle. That the vehicle was delivered to the defendant. And that through some proceeding the check from the insurance company in payment for the repairs ended up going to the defendant, and the defendant cashed it and declined to give the money back.

The person whose vehicle was damaged had a right to have the vehicle fixed, had a right to have the vehicle fixed to the point that it was prior to the accident. Apparently, from the pleadings that was done.

Not entitled to have both the vehicle fixed and an equal amount of money over and above that with the plaintiff having paid the damage. The Court believes the issues are precluded by the pleading in this case, pleadings in this case and that judgment should be entered for the plaintiff for the amount claimed based on the pleadings and the admitted requests. And the Court will enter judgment accordingly.

The trial court's ruling is not erroneous. The facts as set out in the pleadings and the admissions demonstrate the following: Appellant's car was damaged by Appellee; Appellee agreed to have the car repaired; Appellee paid for the repairs, in the amount of $4,844.54; Appellee delivered the car to Appellant; Appellant accepted delivery of the car and voiced no complaints about the repairs; Appellant later received a check from Appellee's insurer in the exact amount of the repairs; Appellant refused to pay the money over to Appellee for the repairs; and Appellant has continued to retain both the repaired car and the money. No additional facts were needed for the trial court to grant judgment on the basis of unjust enrichment and order Appellant to pay the money, plus interest, to Appellee. We thus affirm on this point.

For her second point on appeal, Appellant argues that the trial court erred as a matter of law in applying the theories of unjust enrichment or equitable subrogation to the facts of this case, because Appellee was the tortfeasor, not an innocent...