Johnson v. Anoka Cnty.
| Decision Date | 27 November 2017 |
| Docket Number | A17-0531 |
| Parties | Ricky Johnson, d/b/a Rick Johnson's Deer and Beaver, Inc., Respondent, v. Anoka County, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).
Affirmed
Anoka County District Court
Scott A. Johnson, Todd M. Johnson, Johnson & Johnson Law, LLP, Minnetonka, Minnesota (for respondent)
Anthony C. Palumbo, Anoka County Attorney, Andrew T. Jackola, Assistant County Attorney, Jason J. Stover, Assistant County Attorney, Anoka, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Worke, Presiding Judge; Halbrooks, Judge; and Rodenberg, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Appellant Anoka County challenges the district court's partial summary judgment ruling that appellant breached the parties' contracts for the collection of deer carcasses on Anoka County highways. Appellant further challenges the district court's finding after trial to the court that respondent Ricky Johnson sustained over $420,000 in damages as a result of appellant's breach. Because the district court did not err in granting respondent partial summary judgment on liability, and its findings regarding damages are supported by the record, we affirm.
Respondent sued appellant Anoka County for breach of contract. The parties had a series of three written contracts from 1999 through 2015. Under the contracts, respondent provided services to remove deer and beaver carcasses from Anoka County highways. The first contract covered the term of March 1, 1999 through February 29, 2000. It contained an option to renew for four additional one-year terms, and was extended through 2004 by the parties' agreement.
The language of the first contract stated that respondent would provide services for the "pick-up and disposal of all deer carcasses located on or near Anoka County highways." In late 2004, appellant re-bid the contract for an initial term of January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2006. Respondent was awarded the second contract, which contained option years to extend its term through 2010. Respondent performed under this second contract until appellant re-bid the contract for a third time, for an initial term of April 1, 2011 through December 31, 2012, with options to extend through 2015. Respondent was awarded the third contract and performed carcass-removal services through December 2015. The second and third contracts included the provision that respondent would pick up and be paid for "all" deer carcasses on Anoka County highways.
The three contracts provided that respondent would be paid a monthly "flat rate" for removal of the first ten deer carcasses, plus a fixed-dollar amount for each beaver carcasshe collected, and a second fixed-dollar amount for each deer carcass beyond the first ten he collected per month. Respondent was responsible for all of his equipment, insurance, cell phone, motor vehicle, winch, and fuel costs under the contracts. After respondent collected a deer carcass, he transported it to a wildlife center where the carcasses were used to feed the center's wolves.
In 2003, appellant began using jail inmates to remove and dispose of some of the deer carcasses. It did not notify respondent that it was doing so. The inmates eventually started taking the carcasses to the same wildlife center that respondent had been using for deer carcass disposal. Appellant continued to use the services of the inmates until 2015. It is appellant's use of inmates to remove and dispose of some of the deer carcasses that is the subject of respondent's breach-of-contract claim. Respondent lost revenue by appellant not allowing him to collect and be paid for removal of "all the deer carcasses" in Anoka County. The record contains no evidence of any agreement to modify the parties' contracts, each of which contained a clause requiring that any modification be made in writing.
The parties agree that respondent became aware of appellant's use of inmates to pick up some of the deer carcasses years before this action was commenced. The parties also agree that respondent complained to appellant's employees regarding the use of inmates. One of appellant's employees assured respondent that the use of inmate labor would stop. Respondent contacted an attorney to consider taking action against appellant for its continuing breach before he bid on the third contract, but he did not then sue appellant.
Respondent eventually sued appellant on May 1, 2015, claiming that appellant breached its contracts with respondent by not permitting him to collect "all" deer carcasses on Anoka County highways. The parties made cross-motions for summary judgment. Respondent moved for partial summary judgment against appellant on the issue of liability for breach of contract. Appellant moved for summary judgment dismissing all claims against it, arguing that it did not breach the contracts because the parties intended the word "all" in the contracts to mean something other than "all." In the alternative, appellant argued that respondent waived his claimed exclusive right to remove deer carcasses under the contracts, because he continued to perform under the contracts despite knowledge that appellant was using the inmates. Appellant also argued that respondent waived his claimed exclusive right under the contract by re-bidding on the second and third contracts without bringing suit for the claimed breach.
The district court granted respondent's motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability for breach of contract. It denied appellant's summary judgment motion. It found the contracts between the parties to be unambiguous and that respondent was entitled to collect "all" deer carcasses under the contracts. The district court also rejected appellant's argument that respondent waived his rights under the contracts, finding no evidence in the record creating a genuine issue of material fact that respondent intentionally waived his rights.
The issue of appellant's liability for breach of contract being resolved, the parties proceeded to trial on damages. Appellant moved pretrial for a jury instruction on the issue of mitigation of damages. The district court denied this motion, reasoning that appellanthad not presented enough evidence to warrant the requested instruction. Respondent also moved pretrial to exclude a defense witness from testifying because the witness was not properly disclosed during discovery. The witness had only been identified by appellant in response to one of two relevant interrogatories from respondent. The district court granted this motion. After these pretrial rulings, appellant waived its right to a jury trial, and the damage issues were tried to the court.
At trial, appellant attempted to provide rebuttal evidence to respondent's testimony that the deer population had been consistently increasing over time, through a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources report indicating that the number of deer harvested through hunting had decreased during the years 2009 to 2014. The district court did not find the evidence to be relevant and declined to admit it. At the close of respondent's case-in-chief, appellant moved for dismissal under rule 41.02(b), arguing that respondent had not proven his damages with a reasonable degree of certainty that would allow the court to calculate his damages. Minn. R. Civ. P. 41.02(b). The district court denied the motion.
Appellant argued that respondent's damages should be limited to $71,500. Appellant based this calculation on deer-collection numbers kept by the inmates who collected some of the deer carcasses. The district court did not find these paper records to be credible. The district court found that respondent's resulting revenue loss was pure profit. It found that appellant's arguments regarding any damage-offset amounts would require speculation and therefore made no offset. The district court computed respondent's damages based on his past earnings and testimony regarding the number of deer carcasses provided to the wildlife center. Crediting respondent's testimony, and giving less weightto the evidence offered by appellant, the district court found that respondent had $420,418 in lost profits from 2009 to 2015. Recoverable damages were limited to that time period by the statute of limitations.
Appellant made no motion for a new trial or for amended findings following the trial. This appeal followed.
The statute of limitations confines damages to the six-year period before this action was initiated.
Respondent acknowledges his recovery is limited by the statute of limitations to the six years preceding his commencement of this action. Minn. Stat. §541.05, subd. 1 (2014). In context, he is entitled to his provable damages during the six years prior to May 1, 2015, the date that the complaint was served on appellant, and up to December 31, 2015, the date the third contract ended.
Despite appellant's initial identification of nine issues in its statement of the case, we address five issues on appeal.
Appellant identified nine issues in its statement of the case. We address five of these issues here. Following a special term order requesting briefing on the jurisdictional basis for a number of the issues, appellant voluntarily abandoned the issues of whether the district court erred by precluding a defense witness from testifying because it failed to adequately disclose the witness to respondent and whether the district court erred by excluding appellant's rebuttal evidence regarding the growing deer population at trial.
We now determine that two other issues identified by appellant are not properly before us. First, appellant argues that the district court erred by prohibiting appellant frompresenting a mitigation-of-damages defense at trial by denying its motion in limine for a mitigation-of-damages jury instruction. "[T]he general rule...
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