Snow v. American Morgan Horse Ass'n, Inc.

• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: THAYER
• Citation: Snow v. American Morgan Horse Ass'n, Inc., 686 A.2d 1168, 141 N.H. 467 (N.H. 1996)
• Decision Date: 05 December 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-794,94-794
• Parties: Maxine W. SNOW v. AMERICAN MORGAN HORSE ASSOCIATION, INC.

Page 1168

686 A.2d 1168

141 N.H. 467

Maxine W. SNOW v. AMERICAN MORGAN HORSE ASSOCIATION, INC.

No. 94-794.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

Dec. 5, 1996.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 23, 1997.

Brown, Olson & Wilson, P.C., Concord (Howard B. Myers and Bryan K. Gould on the brief, and Mr. Myers orally), and Sheehan, Phinney, Bass & Green, P.A., Manchester (Daniel J. Lynch and James E. Higgins on the brief), for plaintiff.

Sulloway & Hollis, Concord (Irvin D. Gordon and Edward C. Mosca on the brief, and Mr. Gordon orally), for defendant.

THAYER, Justice.

The plaintiff and counterclaim defendant, Maxine W. Snow, appeals a judgment of the Superior Court (Morrill, J.) finding that she committed fraud and violated the New Hampshire Consumer Protection Act, see RSA ch. 358-A (1995), when she registered five foals as offspring of a Morgan mare, Senora Showblez Vona (Senora). On appeal, Snow argues that the trial court erroneously: (1) found that she engaged in fraud; (2) applied the Consumer Protection Act to her conduct; (3) awarded damages to the American Morgan Horse Association, Inc. (AMHA); and (4) denied her request for a jury trial. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

Snow was involved in the Morgan horse business for almost twenty years. During that time, she was a member of the AMHA, a nonprofit association dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the Morgan horse breed. The AMHA's primary function is to maintain accurate records of the bloodlines of purebred Morgan horses. To accomplish this function, the AMHA keeps a registry of existing Morgan horses which it updates by taking blood samples from newborn foals.

In 1991 and 1992, the AMHA suspected that Snow had falsely certified five foals as offspring of Senora. As a result, the AMHA's Registry Committee began an investigation into Snow's business practices. Because the investigation interfered with Snow's ability to sell the foals in question, she petitioned for preliminary injunctive relief and requested an order compelling the AMHA to recognize the five foals as Senora's offspring. The AMHA filed a two-count counterclaim alleging that Snow committed fraud and violated the Consumer Protection Act.

After the superior court denied her application for a preliminary injunction, Snow withdrew, without prejudice, her claims against the AMHA and its officers. The case then went to trial on AMHA's counterclaims. The superior court found that Snow had committed fraud and violated the Consumer Protection Act. It awarded the AMHA damages in the amount of $376,362.13 for Snow's Consumer Protection Act violation. This appeal followed.

I. Fraud

Snow argues first that the AMHA failed to prove fraud by clear and convincing evidence. We disagree.

The scope of our review of the trial court's factual findings is narrow. Concord Steam Corp. v. City of Concord, 128 N.H. 724, 727, 519 A.2d 266, 269 (1986). "This court will not disturb the decision of the trier of fact unless the findings are clearly erroneous." Dimick v. Lewis, 127 N.H. 141, 144, 497 A.2d 1221, 1223 (1985).

The party alleging fraud "must prove that the [other party] intentionally made material false statements ..., which [she] knew to be false or which [s]he had no knowledge or belief were true, for the purpose of causing, and which does cause, the [party alleging fraud] reasonably to rely to his detriment." Caledonia, Inc. v. Trainor, 123 N.H. 116, 124, 459 A.2d 613, 617-18 (1983) (citations omitted). "Fraud must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, but such proof may be founded upon circumstantial evidence." Id., 459 A.2d at 618.

The trial court found the following facts, all of which are well-supported by the record. In late May 1986, Nancy Odams, owner of Senora, was approached by Snow's partner, Bill Thomas, who said that he had been hired to purchase Senora for an "elderly couple." Odams agreed to the sale. On June 22, 1986, Snow, who was introduced as a friend of the "elderly couple," gave Odams a check for $1,200 to cover the purchase price of Senora. The superior court found, however, that no "elderly couple" planned to take Senora; instead, the Thomas and Snow partnership became Senora's registered owners.

During the next five years, Snow registered five foals with the AMHA, each of which she represented as an offspring of Senora. The first foal was born on April 6, 1987. Because the normal gestation period of a Morgan mare is eleven months, that foal would probably have been conceived in early May 1986. Yet the trial court found that the earliest date that Senora could have been purchased was May 23 or 24. Furthermore, Thomas and Snow did not take immediate possession of the horse after their purchase as they agreed to leave Senora with Odams until late summer.

Odams stated that Snow and her partner had not taken actual possession of Senora until August 1986. Additionally, Odams testified that neither Snow nor her partner mentioned that they had inseminated Senora prior to her delivery, and even Snow admitted that horse breeders do not go onto another's property to inseminate a mare they do not own.

Other witnesses also questioned whether Senora could have been the dam. For example, Pauline Villeneuve, who housed Senora at her barn in 1986, testified that no one came on to her property to inseminate Senora in early May of that year. Several other witnesses stated that it would be unusual for a mare of Senora's age (twenty-five), who had never before produced a foal, to give birth to five offspring.

Finally, other witnesses questioned blood samples on file at the AMHA. In March 1987, Snow submitted to the AMHA's bloodtyping laboratory a blood sample drawn by Dr. Virginia Prince which Snow claimed was from Senora, and which matched the blood sample taken from the foal conceived in early May 1986. Evidence introduced at trial, however, indicated that the dam whose blood Snow submitted might not have been Senora. Furthermore, the superior court found that Snow told Prince she would send the vials to the AMHA laboratory herself, permitting the inference that Snow had substituted a non-Morgan mare's blood for the samples allegedly taken from Senora.

During the next four years, Snow submitted "Registration Applications" for four additional foals, each of which she represented as Senora's foals. The parties agree that each of those foals, along with the first foal born in 1987, were offspring of the same dam.

In 1991, following the birth of the last of the foals, the AMHA began its investigation of Snow. The superior court found that Snow's behavior during the investigation was suspicious. For one thing, following the onset of the AMHA investigation, Snow moved Senora from her farm in New Hampshire to a location in Rhode Island, allegedly to prevent colic. When the AMHA's Registrar made an initial visit to Snow's farm in October, however, Snow advised the Registrar that Senora was at an unidentified "vet clinic."

Two months later, on December 10, 1991, the AMHA's Registrar returned to Snow's farm with a veterinarian to take a blood sample from Senora so that it could be compared with the blood sample previously submitted by Snow under Senora's name. Snow informed the Registrar that Senora was in Rhode Island. She initially agreed to allow the Registrar to drive to Rhode Island to take the blood sample, but later refused, citing the AMHA's unwillingness to identify her accusers.

During the next seven months, the AMHA made repeated requests for hair and blood samples from Senora. Snow refused. She never indicated that her reason for refusing the requests was that Senora had, in fact, died; on the contrary, she continued to indicate that the horse was alive.

In July 1992, Snow was ordered to produce Senora for blood testing by the superior court in a separate action brought against Snow by a purchaser of one of the foals at issue here. Snow responded by filing a "Death Report Form" indicating that Senora had died on December 2, 1991. The date of death was one week before Snow told the AMHA Registrar who visited her farm that Senora was in Rhode Island. Snow contended, however, that she had not been informed of Senora's death at the time of the Registrar's visit.

The evidence and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, amply support the trial court's finding that Snow intentionally defrauded the AMHA by falsely registering five...