Yarbrough v. Williams, 86-769
| Decision Date | 16 September 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-769,86-769 |
| Citation | 533 So.2d 565 |
| Parties | Avery YARBROUGH; and Avery Yarbrough & Associates v. Don WILLIAMS. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Stephen B. Griffin, of Griffin, Allison & May, Birmingham, for appellant.
Stephen R. Arnold, of Durward & Arnold, Birmingham, for appellee.
Don Williams sued Avery Yarbrough and Avery Yarbrough & Associates for damages for breach of an oral contract and for conversion of materials Williams had produced for a real estate investors' course to be promoted by Yarbrough. A jury awarded Williams $47,000 in compensatory damages and the trial court denied Yarbrough's motion for new trial. The court added interest to the amount of the jury's award and entered a judgment for $54,520.00. In essence, Yarbrough questions on appeal the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the jury's verdict. Specifically, Yarbrough denies the existence of a contract and, in the alternative, argues that he and Williams had, if anything, a satisfaction contract for goods, which goods Yarbrough accepted but later rightfully revoked his acceptance in good faith.
Williams began a real estate school in the 1960's that offered a preparation course for the Alabama real estate license examination. The course consisted of lectures that Williams gave personally and a corresponding textbook. Williams sold the school to Yarbrough in 1979 under a written contract; thereafter, Williams updated the text for the course pursuant to various oral agreements between them as laws pertaining to real estate and taxes changed. Sometime in 1983, Williams and Yarbrough discussed beginning a real estate investors' course together. According to testimony by both of them, after negotiating for several months, they finally reached an oral agreement providing that Williams would produce written materials and eight video lectures for the investors' course and would update the prelicense course, for which Yarbrough was to pay $50,000. Yarbrough would own the materials and have the right to market the course, while Williams retained the option to present the course in Florida. Both men also agreed that if for some reason Yarbrough was dissatisfied with the materials prior to using them, Williams would buy them back. It is this "satisfaction" condition that Yarbrough now argues justified his retention, advertising, and marketing of Williams's material without payment for it.
Williams completed the videotapes and the corresponding book by the end of 1983 and delivered them to Yarbrough. On January 2, 1984, Yarbrough wrote Williams a check for $47,000, but postdated it for March 1, 1984, for tax purposes. (Yarbrough had previously paid Williams $3,000 for the updating of the prelicense course.) Yarbrough stopped payment on the check on February 8, 1984, retaining the materials Williams had produced, and when Williams presented the check at Colonial Bank on March 1, 1984, it refused to pay. Williams sued Yarbrough and Yarbrough & Associates on April 24, 1984.
There was testimony and other evidence at trial indicating that Yarbrough advertised and marketed the course in the winter and spring of 1983-84, selling almost all of the 250 copies of Williams's book he had had printed. Yarbrough kept all of the tapes and...
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