Morrison v. Reilly, 4199

• Decision Date: 13 July 1973
• Docket Number: No. 4199,4199
• Citation: 511 P.2d 970
• Parties: Joe I. MORRISON, Appellant (Defendant below), v. A. E. REILLY, Appellee (Plaintiff below).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 970

511 P.2d 970

Joe I. MORRISON, Appellant (Defendant below), v. A. E. REILLY, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

No. 4199.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

July 13, 1973.

Tim Watt, Gillette, for appellant.

William G. Watt, Gillette, for appellee.

Before PARKER, C. J., and McEWAN, GUTHRIE and McINTYRE, JJ.

Mr. Justice GUTHRIE delivered the opinion of the court.

Reilly, appellee herein, asserted a claim against Morrison, appellant herein, upon a contract in the sum of $22,000 including interest. Upon the trial thereof, the district court granted judgment against the appellant in the sum of $8,333.36 plus costs, and it is from that judgment this appeal is pursued.

After a course of business dealings during which Reilly advanced Morrison a considerable sum of money, on July 2, 1963, they entered into an agreement by virtue of which Morrison agreed to pay Reilly a total sum of $22,000, $17,000 being principal and $5,000 interest. This was to be paid in installments and certain stock certificates representing stock in the Recursos Consolidados De Mexico were deposited by Morrison with D. R. Coleman for release when certain payments were made. Because of some misunderstanding and the need for clarification, on October 2, 1963, a supplemental agreement was made. This provided, among other things, that Reilly might receive the stock certificates from Coleman in event of default and after one week's advertisement might sell the same and apply the proceeds to the indebtedness. Appellee never advertised or sold said stock, contending he delivered it to the Mexican officials investigating the operations of Morrison. There was an additional clause as follows: 'Moneys mentioned therein are United States Dollars.' The only testimony herein would imply that this clause was directed at the amount of the indebtedness and to settle the question whether this total was based upon United States dollars or Mexican pesos. The original instrument was written with the conventional dollar sign and it is indicated from the record that this might raise some confusion in dealing with the two currencies.

Appellant asserts, 'There is no evidence in the record to justify giving a judgment to Appellee against the Appellant in the amount of $8,333.36' and contends that it is impossible to rationalize any theory whereby the court could find that the appellant owed the appellee this sum. Appellant attempts to sustain this contention upon the theory expressed in oral argument that the amount of the judgment was arrived at by granting to appellee the judgment in the full sum of $22,000, which would be due and owing on the contract, and that the court in charging plaintiff with the value of the stock deposited with this agreement as collateral and necessarily based the computation of the stock value in pesos as contrasted to dollars; and that the only evidence in the record as to the value of the stock was appellant's testimony that he had sold certain of these shares for $8.00 per share American money and because of this uncontradicted testimony the court was obligated to compute this offset or credit based upon the value of the American dollar at $8.00 per share. Appellee concedes that this was the basis of the court's ruling but contends that it was proper to allow such credit based upon the...