State ex rel. Monteath v. Ninth Judicial Dist. Court in and for Glacier County (Mont.)

• Decision Date: 09 October 1934
• Docket Number: 7326.
• Citation: 37 P.2d 567,97 Mont. 530
• Parties: STATE ex rel. MONTEATH et al. v. NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR GLACIER COUNTY et al.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

37 P.2d 567

97 Mont. 530

STATE ex rel. MONTEATH et al. v. NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR GLACIER COUNTY et al.

No. 7326.

Supreme Court of Montana

October 9, 1934

Original certiorari proceeding by the State, on the relation of James H. Monteath and another, opposed by the Ninth Judicial District Court in and for Glacier county, R. M. Hattersley Judge thereof, and Henry L. Magee, Clerk of Court, to review an order amending a judgment.

Proceeding dismissed.

Horace W. Judson, of Cut Bank, for respondents.

STEWART Justice.

Certiorari to the district court of Glacier county.On the application of James H. Monteath and Sadie L. Monteath, made on the affidavit of their attorney, W. D. Kyle, Esq., and filed on June 29, 1934, this court caused a writ of certiorari to issue, commanding the district court of Glacier county to certify its transcript of the record of the proceedings had in that court in relation to the entry of an amended judgment in a cause wherein James H. and Sadie L. Monteath were the plaintiffs, and Uldene V Monteath, as executrix of the will of James S. Monteath, and Uldene V. Monteath personally, were the defendants, to the end that the same might be reviewed by this court.Briefs were filed by both parties, and oral argument was presented by relators.

The cause wherein the differences arose between the parties, and the one to be reviewed here, is the one last above mentioned.The action was filed and tried in the respondentdistrict court.It should be noted, however, that the pleadings and testimony in the action under consideration were not filed in this court and are not part of the record before it.We only have for consideration as the record in the case the findings of fact and conclusions of law made by the court, the original judgment, and the amended judgment later entered.The right to enter the latter is the subject of the controversy here.

It appears that the plaintiffs and their son James S. Monteath now deceased, operated a hotel in partnership at Glacier Park, Montana.After the death of James S. Monteath, the defendantUldene V. Monteath qualified as executrix of his will.Differences arose between plaintiffs and the executrix, the widow.A claim was presented by plaintiffs against the estate for a balance of account, and a demand was made for the annulment of a certain deed and contract executed by the plaintiffs and James S. Monteath during his lifetime.It was claimed that the deed and contract were illegal because fraudulently obtained.The court in its findings of fact and conclusions of law, and in both judgments, sustained this contention.There is no issue as to them before this court.The controversy involves only the balance of account.

After the death of James S. Monteath, the books of the partnership were audited.This audit disclosed the respective amounts drawn by each of the partners and evidenced the balance of each.

The defendants also urged a cross-complaint based upon a note given by James S. Monteath, the deceased, to plaintiffs for a share in the partnership.The pleadings included all items of difference in the account, so that when the court finally heard the matter, it was in effect an accounting action, and the case was tried as such before the court without a jury.The court took the matter under advisement, and, as stated, later filed findings of fact and conclusions of law.Judgment was entered thereon February 21, 1934.The court in the entry of judgment assumed to enter the same in accordance with the findings of fact and conclusions of law.

On April 4, 1934, the defendants, alleging that the judgment was incorrect and had been inadvertently made by the court and filed by the clerk, filed a motion seeking to have the judgment corrected and amended to comply with the findings of fact and conclusions of law thereinbefore made and filed.This motion was based upon the court's conclusion of law designated as No. III.In this conclusion of law the court found that the estate of James S. Monteath had a credit balance on the partnership books in the amount of $492.22, "for which judgment will be entered herein in favor of said estate and against the plaintiffs as the surviving partners of said partnership."Defendants asserted that in view of this conclusion of law, the judgment was incorrect in ordering a dismissal of the cross-complaint.The motion was noticed and heard, and on June 21, 1934, the court made and rendered an amended judgment.In this amended judgment the provisions of the previous judgment relative to all the issues, except the balance of $492.22, were repeated and included without change.In that respect, however, it provided that the defendants recover upon their cross-complaint the sum of $492.22, less $125 awarded as costs to plaintiffs in the original judgment.Both judgments recite the findings of fact and conclusions of law in identical form.Each of the parties contend that the judgment upon which he stands is in accordance with the findings of fact and conclusions of law.

This proceeding is prosecuted by the plaintiffs for a writ of certiorari to annul the amended judgment so that the original judgment may stand unimpaired.Relators, hereinafter called plaintiffs, contend that the trial court was wholly without jurisdiction or power to render the amended judgment.

In order to understand the contentions of the parties, it will be necessary to review some of the facts.The original judgment recited the fact that the plaintiffs had a credit balance of $7,238.63, and that the defendant estate had a credit balance of $492.22 upon the partnership books.It then continued with the following recitation, "but to pay which said (credit) balances there is no partnership property, all property acquired during the partnership having been bought with the funds of the plaintiffs."This recitation in the judgment is not necessarily contrary to, or in conflict with, the conclusion of law quoted above, to wit, that "judgment will be entered herein in favor of said estate and against the plaintiffs as the surviving partners of said partnership."In fact, the conclusion of law indicates that the judgment should have been taken against the plaintiffs personally, rather than against any partnership property.

It should be noted, however, that in spite of the conclusion of law the court failed to decree in its judgment that the defendants should have judgment against the plaintiffs for the amount of the credit balance.Instead it decreed that "defendantUldene V. Monteath do not recover on her cross-complaint, and that the same be and is hereby dismissed."It is possible that this was an oversight on the part of the court in rendering the judgment.The court may have intended to award a judgment in favor of the estate against plaintiffs personally for the amount of the credit balance of $492.22.If this had been done, it would have conformed to the court's conclusion of law No. III.In the state of the record we are unable to pass upon the correctness of the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law.

It does not appear in the findings of fact or the conclusions of law that there was any claim or demand in defendant's cross-complaint for the amount of the credit balance in question.From all that appears defendant based her cross-complaint entirely upon a claim with respect to a $1,400 note mentioned in the findings of fact.To this extent the amended judgment fails to conform to the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law.According to the conclusion of law, the credit balance of $492.22 was adjudged to be in favor of the estate only; in spite of it the amended decree carried a judgment in favor of the estate and also to Uldene V. Monteath personally.In this particular there is a lack of uniformity with the findings of fact and conclusions of law.

Briefly, the situation appears to be as follows: Neither the original judgment nor the amended judgment is in strict conformity with the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law.From the record before us it is impossible to determine whether the court inadvertently overlooked awarding the defendants the amount of the credit balance in the first judgment, or whether it was of the opinion that the defendants could recover nothing upon the credit balance, since there was no partnership property.

Plaintiffs contend that the original judgment was in conformity with the findings of fact and conclusions of law.Defendants claim that the amended judgment is in conformity with the findings of fact and conclusions of law made by the court.A careful study of the findings and conclusions leads us to the conclusion that there are findings and conclusions sufficient to support either contention, if certain other findings and conclusions are ignored.The best we can make out of it is that the findings of fact and conclusions of law, when taken as a whole, are confusing and conflicting.

It must be remembered that it is the judgment, and not the findings and conclusions, that is of primary importance here."Findings of fact and conclusions of law made by the district court do not constitute its judgment; they are merely the foundation for a judgment."Galiger v. McNulty,80 Mont. 339, 260 P. 401.

It is not necessary for us to decide the merits of the contentions of the parties as to which judgment really conformed to the findings and conclusions.There is ample precedent to justify the court in attempting to make the judgment express what it had actually decided.In the case of Jennings' Estate, 79 Mont. 73, 254 P. 1067, 1068, the court said: "It is the generally accepted rule that courts have the inherent power to correct or amend their judgments so that they shall truly express that...