Case Title: Wagon Wheel Village, Inc. v. Harris

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1999-12-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
Wagon Wheel Village, Inc. v. Harris1999 WY 185993 P.2d 323Case Number: 99-117Decided: 12/29/1999Supreme Court of Wyoming
 
WAGON WHEEL VILLAGE, INC., a Wyoming corporation, Appellant 
(Plaintiff),

v.

TODD HARRIS, Appellee 
(Defendant).

 

Appeal from the District 
Court of Teton County, Honorable D. Terry Rogers, 
Judge.

R. Michael 
Mullikin of Mullikin, Larson & Swift, LLC, Jackson, WY., representing 
appellant.

David G. Lewis, 
Jackson, WY., representing appellee.

Before 
LEHMAN, C.J., and THOMAS, MACY, GOLDEN, and HILL, JJ.

HILL, 
Justice.

[¶1]      Wagon Wheel 
Village, Inc. (Wagon Wheel), a motel/resort complex in Jackson, appeals from an 
award of $4,000 on a counter-claim by its lessee, Todd Harris, in a breach of 
lease action. Wagon Wheel also appeals the trial court's decision denying it an 
award of attorney fees as the "prevailing party" under the terms of the 
lease.

[¶2]      We reverse, 
vacating in part and remanding in part.

ISSUES

[¶3]      Wagon Wheel 
presents five issues on appeal:

I. Whether Wagon 
Wheel was excused from its obligations under the lease from and after the 
default of Harris.

II. Whether, 
assuming Wagon Wheel breached its lease, the acts described by the trial court 
on which such breach was predicated proximately caused the damages 
awarded.

III. Whether the 
damages awarded were speculative and without proper factual 
foundation.

IV. Whether 
Harris failed to mitigate his damages.

V. Whether the 
trial court properly refused to award a reasonable attorney fees [sic] to Wagon 
Wheel pursuant to the terms of the lease.

Harris provides 
a more succinct statement of the issues before the Court:

A. Whether the 
appellee [Harris] was entitled to his damages as a result of the breach of the 
agreement by the landlord [Wagon Wheel].

B. Whether the 
appellant [Wagon Wheel] was entitled to recover its attorneys fees and costs 
where it was found by the trial court to be in default under the agreement, and 
in causing damage to the appellee's leasehold property.

FACTS

[¶4]      This extremely 
contentious case began when Harris purchased a laundromat business in late 1996. 
As part of the purchase of the business, Harris received a two-year lease on a 
building that was owned by Wagon Wheel and was a part of its motel/resort 
complex. Harris took over the business effective January 1, 
1997.

[¶5]      Harris' 
relationship with his landlord was initially amicable. However, when the owner 
died in the summer of 1997, her son took over Wagon Wheel, and the relationship 
with Harris deteriorated rapidly. Wagon Wheel began to engage in several petty 
harassments of Harris' business, such as refusing to remove snow from the roof 
of his building or from his portion of the parking lot, and failing to supply 
Christmas lights for the building while doing so for all other occupied 
businesses on the premises. Wagon Wheel also ordered other businesses not to 
provide services such as making change for laundromat customers. In addition, 
Wagon Wheel assigned parking spots which had historically been used by the 
laundromat to another business. Then, sometime in late February or early March 
1998, Wagon Wheel upped the ante by plowing snow from the parking lots into a 
large pile directly in front of Harris' building. The pile of snow subsequently 
melted and, because of the nature of the terrain and the location of the pile, 
flooded the laundromat.

[¶6]      Meanwhile, Harris 
had failed to obtain fire and extended all-risk insurance coverage on the leased 
premises pursuant to lease requirements. Upon discovery of this fact, Wagon 
Wheel found the breach it was looking for and filed this action on December 10, 
1997, to evict Harris. Harris counter-claimed for damages and/or an abatement of 
the rent based on the contention that Wagon Wheel's actions regarding the snow 
removal and parking space appropriation breached the lease. After a bench trial, 
the district court held that Harris' failure to carry the requisite insurance 
constituted a breach of the lease. Consequently, the district court ordered 
Harris to vacate the premises. This decision is not at issue on 
appeal.

[¶7]      In addition, the 
district court concluded that Wagon Wheel had also breached the lease when it 
caused the snow to be piled in a manner that led to the flooding of the 
laundromat resulting in damages of "approximately" $4,000. The court ordered 
Wagon Wheel to pay $4,000 to Harris and also denied Wagon Wheel's motion for 
attorney fees under the provision of the lease wherein the "prevailing party" 
was entitled to such when it ordered each party to bear its own costs and 
attorney fees. Wagon Wheel now appeals that part of the judgment awarding 
damages to Harris and denying an award of attorney fees.

DISCUSSION

Damages

[¶8]      Wagon Wheel 
raises several issues in its attempt to reverse the district court's award of 
damages to Harris on his counter-claim. We need, however, consider only one: 
whether the amount of damages awarded is supported by sufficient evidence. Our 
review of the entire record leads us to answer that question in the 
negative.

[¶9]      "On review, this 
court assumes that the evidence in favor of the successful party is true," and 
we give that evidence "every favorable inference that may be reasonably and 
fairly drawn from it." Dunn v. Rescon Technology Corp., 884 P.2d 965, 967 (Wyo. 
1994). We give no consideration whatsoever to the evidence presented by the 
unsuccessful party which is in conflict with the evidence of the successful 
party. Id. As in any other breach of contract action, it almost goes without 
saying that it was incumbent upon Harris to introduce sufficient evidence in 
support of his claim for damages. See, e.g., Examination Management Services v. 
Kirschbaum, 927 P.2d 686, 699 (Wyo. 1996); Sagebrush Development, Inc. v. 
Moehrke, 604 P.2d 198, 201-204 (Wyo. 1979).

[¶10]   Unfortunately, the district court's 
order fails to identify how the $4,000 damage figure was derived. We have 
searched the record in vain for any evidence which directly or through inference 
could even remotely support the award of $4,000 on Harris' counter-claim. There 
was no testimony from Harris or any other witness regarding the extent of 
damages suffered by Harris' business due to the actions of Wagon Wheel. The only 
evidence remotely related to the issue of damages is two pocket calendars 
wherein Harris ostensibly recorded the daily gross receipts of the laundromat. 
This evidence, however, is insufficient to support the district court's 
determination for two reasons.

[¶11]   First, the two calendars were 
introduced into evidence by Harris for the limited purpose of showing loss of 
profit for the period of June, July, and August 1998 due to Wagon Wheel's 
appropriation of the laundromat's historic parking places. Harris specifically 
declaimed any intent to utilize the calendars to show a loss of profit for any 
other period of time including, presumably, the period of February and March 
1998 when the flooding occurred.1

[¶12]   Even were we to ignore the 
limitations placed on the admissibility of the calendars, the contents do not 
support the district court's damage award. The calendars' "record" of gross 
receipts is not complete and is not in an organized form. Hence, it is 
impossible to determine from the calendars how, or whether, the district court 
derived its calculation of damages. Furthermore, while a proper measure of 
damages for the breach of a lease may be net profits, the only information in 
the record is the gross revenues of the laundromat listed in the calendars. 
There is no evidence at all in the record of Harris' expenses, making it 
impossible to calculate a proper award of damages based on lost 
profits.

[¶13]   Under the circumstances of this 
case, there is a complete lack of proof on an essential element of Harris' 
counter-claim: the amount of damages suffered as a result of Wagon Wheel's 
breach. We have no recourse but to vacate the award of $4,000 damages on the 
grounds that there is insufficient evidence in the record in support 
thereof.

Attorney 
Fees

[¶14]   In Wyoming, each party to a lawsuit 
bears their own attorney fees in the absence of an express contractual or 
statutory provision for attorney fees. McLain v. Anderson, 933 P.2d 468, 472 
(Wyo. 1997). The lease at issue in this matter provided:

In the event 
either party shall find it necessary to obtain the services of an attorney to 
enforce any of the covenants and conditions of this Lease, the prevailing party 
shall be entitled to reimbursement for all costs and expenses, including 
reasonable attorneys' fees, whether or not litigation is 
commenced.

Despite this 
provision, the district court ordered each party to bear its own costs and 
attorney fees. Although the order is silent as to why the district court made 
that decision, it is likely based on the determination below that both parties 
had breached the lease and, hence, neither was a "prevailing party." In light of 
our decision reversing and vacating the district court's order of damages to 
Harris, we reverse and remand this portion of the decision for a determination 
of whether attorney fees are now warranted.

CONCLUSION

[¶15]   We must reverse and vacate the 
award of damages to Harris on his counter-claim because there is insufficient 
evidence in the record to support it. We wish to make clear that this decision 
in no way condones the actions of Wagon Wheel in this matter. Similarly, we must 
reverse the decision ordering both parties to bear their own costs and attorney 
fees and remand the matter to the district court for further consideration. 

[¶16]   Reversed, vacated in part and 
remanded in part.

Footnotes

1 The reason 
for the voluntary limitation on the calendar's admissibility was related to the 
timing of their offerance as evidence. The existence of the calendars was 
disclosed to Wagon Wheel and the court after the deadline imposed by the court's 
pretrial order for disclosing trial exhibits had expired. Since the period 
relating to the loss of profits due to the appropriation of the parking spots 
was ongoing at the time of the pretrial conference, the trial court concluded 
that the calendars should be admitted.