Reeves v. Boatman, 88-206

• Decision Date: 28 February 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88-206,88-206
• Citation: 769 P.2d 917
• Parties: William REEVES, Appellant (Plaintiff), v. William BOATMAN, Appellee (Defendant).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 917

769 P.2d 917

William REEVES, Appellant (Plaintiff), v. William BOATMAN, Appellee (Defendant).

No. 88-206.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

Feb. 28, 1989.

William R. Fix, Jackson, for appellant.

Floyd R. King, Jackson, for appellee.

Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY and GOLDEN, JJ.

URBIGKIT, Justice.

The effect of a litigant's failure to answer a request for W.R.C.P. 36 admissions appears as an appellate issue within the sufficiency of evidence inquiry for contended judgment reversal.

We affirm.

Plaintiff William Reeves, as appellant, and defendant William Boatman, as appellee, were arguably involved for a time in an outfitting partnership in the Jackson, Wyoming area. The business, by trial time, had been sold and sales proceeds of about $9,000 to $10,000 remained in escrow in a Jackson bank. A third "partner," Dr. Donald Bricker, was originally sued by appellant but settled out before trial. After a two-day trial, appellant was awarded a judgment for $1,700, and he now appeals on the basis of the insufficiency of the amount recovered.

This is an unusual sufficiency of the evidence appeal. Appellant submitted requests for admission to appellee which were never answered. ¹ Based on the "admissions," appellant now contends that the trial court erred in the minuscule judgment granted. Conversely, appellee, by his successor counsel, contends that appellant, in his testimony, contradicted what had been deemed admitted so that factual issues were provided for trial court decision. In part, what makes the case factually interesting is that the "admitting" party arguably did not create the factual dispute but rather the differences between the admissions and what the benefitting party testified to at trial created the factual conflicts. We will resolve the case without a determination that appellant disproved the admissions which he had obtained.

This appeal asks us to resolve that settled material issues of fact were ignored by the trial court. Consequently, appellant asks for reversal on the basis of an insufficiency of evidence to sustain the decision or, more specifically, the minimal amount of money judgment granted. Our decision is made on the basis that the admissions in themselves did not settle all issues of factual dispute.

In general outline of the confused nature of this case, Dr. Bricker put up the money and acquired the Wyoming hunting camp. Appellee came to be either his agent or partner and appellant thereafter became involved in some additional fashion which may have included a cash contribution. The evidence is clear that the hunting camp was in the name of a corporation, Teton Financial & Leasing, Inc., which briefly entered the litigation as a third-party plaintiff and, as abruptly, was stricken. Dr. Bricker was the sole shareholder of the corporation. Dr. Bricker, a resident of Texas, wanted out of the Wyoming hunting camp business and ultimately, through involvement of appellee, sold the business and it is the proceeds of sale which appellant now sues to share. The case was actually more complex since Dr. Bricker denied that either appellee or appellant were ever partners. It is not clear how the $9,000 to $10,000 in escrow in the Jackson bank relates to the entire sales proceeds, but at least it is reasonably clear that whatever Dr. Bricker got out of the transaction was nothing in excess of what his investments had been. ²

While still in the litigation, Dr. Bricker submitted twenty-eight requests for admission to appellant which were all denied. After a complex course of pleadings, including discovery proceedings and a motion of appellee's attorney to withdraw for fee nonpayment and after Dr. Bricker settled out in February 1988, appellant submitted a request for admission to appellee in May as including the following:

REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 1. That a partnership existed among William Boatman, Donald Bricker, and William Reeves.

REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 2. That a partnership among William Boatman, Donald Bricker, and William Reeves commenced in 1983.

REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 3. That a partnership now exists among William Boatman, Donald Bricker, and William Reeves.

REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 4. That the Plaintiff William Reeves contributed a total $18,600.00 to the partnership as a capital contribution.

REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 5. That a partnership existed between William Boatman and Donald Bricker.

REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 6. That a partnership now exists between William Boatman and Donald Bricker.

Appellee did not answer and after a change of counsel, the case came to trial with the unanswered requests apparently not discussed in trial court proceedings until opening statement as then by a preliminary inquiry by appellant's counsel as to dispositive effect. As the tangled tale unwound at trial, four witnesses testified in behalf of appellant and portions of a deposition taken from Dr. Bricker were read in open court and three witnesses testified in behalf of appellee.

Accepting the admissions to establish those facts for the purpose of the litigation between these two parties does not decide what is owed to whom and why so; leaving no further analysis of the evidence required by the trial judge. It is apparent that even with these admissions and after considering all of the testimony, factual disputes remained for the trial court out of the complex and convoluted relationships. The trial court was further required to continue by analysis about the kind of relationship claimed by the litigants in the nature of an oral partnership and how proceeds to be realized from the real owner, Dr. Bricker, were then to be divided between themselves.

Actually, Dr. Bricker sold the camp to an external party for $45,000 and, in his testimony, denied that he ever was a partner with either of the other litigants and particularly so since the hunting camp was in a corporation of which he was the sole shareholder. For him, it was indeed a no profit operation. Taking as established what is included as the substance of the request for admission between the two remaining litigants, we would still discern sufficient conflicts in evidence to factually justify the decision rendered by the trial court. In this analysis, the case comes within the sufficiency of the evidence inquiry for appellate review. ³

The trial court, in dispositive written judgment, analyzed the case in part:

The Court has drafted this Judgment three times. The third time is a charm.

This is a difficult case because someone is lying. Maybe everyone is lying.

It is true that the defendant failed to respond to Request for Admissions and the law in that regard is clear. On the other hand, it is clear that Mr. Reeves testified contrary to the Admissions during his testimony. It is also clear to the Court that some of the money in escrow at Jackson State Bank belongs to Mr. Reeves. The question is--how much?

This is a most difficult case.

The fact that certain contentions are deemed admitted (although probably in part at least questionable, if not actually untrue) by failure of the litigant to deny does not demonstrate trial court error where the...