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Nature of Suit Code: 380
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Property Damage
Cause of Action: 

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FILED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

United Stat.es Court of Appeals 

•r"nth Cirm1it 

FEB 081988 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk ODIS JERRELL SPIVA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

IDA BRYANT; GAYLE LEDBETTER; 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Acting by and through the Small 

Business Administration; 

FIRST ELDORADO BANCORPORATION, INC., 

an Oklahoma Holding Co., 

Defendants, 

and 

FIRST SOUTHWEST BANK, an Oklahoma 

Corporation, 

Defendant-Appellant, 

OKLAHOMA BANKER'S ASSOCIATION; 

OKLAHOMA STATE BANKING DEPARTMENT; 

OKLAHOMA TRIAL LAWYERS ASSOCIATION, 

Amici Curiae. 

ODIS JERRELL SPIVA, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

GAYLE LEDBETTER; UNITED STATES 

OF AMERICA, Acting by and through 

the Small Business Administration; 

FIRST ELDORADO BANCORPORATION, INC., 

an Oklahoma Holding Co., 

Defendants, 

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No. 86-2317 

(D.C. No. 84-0074-B) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

No. 87-1437 

(D.C. No. 84-0074-B) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

Appellate Case: 86-2317 Document: 010110025193 Date Filed: 02/08/1988 Page: 1 
and 

IDA BRYANT; FIRST SOUTHWEST BANK, 

an Oklahoma Corporation, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT 

Before McKAY, MOORE, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges 

Before the court are two appeals from orders entered by the 

district court in an adversary proceeding withdrawn from the 

bankruptcy court and tried before a jury in the district court. 

In appeal No. 86-2317, defendant First Southwest Bank (Bank) 

challenges an $800,000 judgment entered on the jury's verdict in 

favor of plaintiff against the Bank and another defendant who has 

not appealed. In appeal No. 87-1437, plaintiff seeks review of 

the district court's subsequent denial of his motion for 

prejudgment interest. 

Appeal No. 86-2317 

At the outset, we note that our review of the district 

court's rulings on the state law matters presented in this case is 

limited to the correction of clear error. See Loveridge v. 

Dreagoux, 678 F.2d 870, 877 (10th Cir. 1982); In re Privett, 435 

F.2d 261, 262 (10th Cir. 1970). Upon examination of the record in 

this light, we believe the district court's determination that 

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Appellate Case: 86-2317 Document: 010110025193 Date Filed: 02/08/1988 Page: 2 
sufficient evidence supported each of plaintiff's theories of 

recovery should not be disturbed on appeal. See generally Brown 

v. McGraw-Edison Co., 736 F.2d 609, 612-13 (10th Cir. 1984). 

Furthermore, we find no abuse of discretion in the district 

court's denial of the Bank's motion for new trial on this basis. 

Id. at 616-17. 

The Bank's claim that, regardless of the strength of 

plaintiff's case, it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on 

its waiver and confidentiality defenses was properly rejected by 

the district court. These issues were appropriately submitted to 

the jury, whose implicit repudiation of the Bank's position will 

not be disturbed on appeal. 

The district court's dismissal of the Bank's counterclaim is 

not properly before this court. The action taken by the district 

court constitutes, in essence, an order remanding the counterclaim 

to the bankruptcy court, which is neither final nor appealable. 

See generally In re Commercial Contractors, Inc., 771 F.2d 1373, 

1374-75 (10th Cir. 1985); In re Glover, Inc., 697 F.2d 907, 909-10 

(10th Cir. 1983). 

The Bank maintains that the jury's verdict in favor of 

defendant Ledbetter, the Bank's representative in essentially all 

of its dealings with defendant Bryant and plaintiff, is 

irreconcilable with the verdict rendered against the Bank. If the 

verdict is inherently inconsistent as the Bank contends, the Bank 

is entitled to a new trial. See Diamond Shamrock Corp. v. Zinke & 

Trumbo, Ltd., 791 F.2d 1416, 1423 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 107 

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Appellate Case: 86-2317 Document: 010110025193 Date Filed: 02/08/1988 Page: 3 
S. Ct. 647 (1986) and cases cited therein. However, we review the 

verdict in this regard only for fundamental or patent error, as 

the Bank failed to preserve the matter either by objection to the 

instructions expressly directing the jury to consider the 

liability of the defendants separately and independently, see 

Merchant v. Ruhle, 740 F.2d 86, 91 (1st Cir. 1984); Lopez v. 

Oldendorf, 545 F.2d 836, 839 (2d Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 431 

U.S. 938 (1977); see also Young v. Taylor, 466 F.2d 1329, 1334 

(10th Cir. 1972), or by motion bringing the issue to the district 

court's attention at some point prior to appeal, see 5A J. Moore 

and J. Lucas, Moore's Federal Practice§ 46.02 at 1902-06 (2d Ed. 

1987); Neu v. Grant, 548 F.2d 281, 287 (10th Cir. 1977); 

Connecticut Fire Ins. Co. v. Fox, 361 F.2d 1, 3 (10th Cir. 1966). 

The pleadings and the instructions given at trial clearly 

demonstrate that plaintiff asserted separate and distinct claims 

against Ledbetter and the Bank. The Bank's liability, as alleged, 

was predicated upon the breach of an independent duty owed by the 

Bank directly to plaintiff and was not contingent upon the 

personal liability of Ledbetter or any other particular employee 

or agent of the Bank. Consequently, the cases cited by the Bank 

in support of its inconsistency argument, all of which deal with 

vicarious liability, are inapposite. Indeed, these same cases 

articulate the distinction we recognize here between an employer's 

vicarious liability and its liability based on the breach of an 

independent or concurrent duty owed to the plaintiff. See Braden 

v. Hendricks, 695 P.2d 1343, 1351-52 (Okla. 1985); Vaughn v. 

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Appellate Case: 86-2317 Document: 010110025193 Date Filed: 02/08/1988 Page: 4 
Texaco, 631 P.2d 1334, 1337 (Okla. App. 1981); Willis v. Fried, 

629 P.2d 1255, 1257 (Okla. 1981). 

Looking beyond the pleadings to the evidence presented at 

trial, it is admittedly not such a simple matter to reconcile the 

conflict noted by the Bank. Virtually all of plaintiff's face-toface dealings with the Bank were through Ledbetter and every 

affirmative act of misrepresentation by the Bank was made by or 

through her. If plaintiff's case against the Bank consisted 

solely of these affirmative instances of fraud, we might have to 

say that the verdict was fatally inconsistent. However, plaintiff 

also presented evidence to establish passive versions of fraud, 

i.e., nondisclosure fraud and constructive fraud. Significantly, 

these claims are predicated not upon Ledbetter's affirmative 

failure to disclose 

only to Ledbetter 

misrepresentations, but upon an omission, a 

material information, that applies not 

personally but also directly to the Bank, which, as the evidence 

established, owed the duty to disclose to plaintiff, possessed the 

pertinent information, and certainly had the means quite apart 

from Ledbetter to communicate that information to plaintiff. 

Moreover, it is the Bank that profited most directly from the 

transaction. Thus, the verdict can be explained by recognizing 

that the jury could properly have found a duty to disclose owed to 

plaintiff by the Bank, but not by Ledbetter personally. There 

was, for example, substantial evidence presented that tended to 

establish the fiduciary duty of the Bank to this particular 

customer but that did not necessarily imply such a duty was also 

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Appellate Case: 86-2317 Document: 010110025193 Date Filed: 02/08/1988 Page: 5 
owed personally by the Bank's representative in the matter. Under 

this view, Ledbetter's silence (coupled with the Bank's failure to 

disclose through anyone else) could have provided the basis for 

imposing liability on the Bank while still permitting the jury to 

exonerate Ledbetter individually. 

This court has a constitutional duty to reconcile, if at all 

possible, apparent conflicts in the jury's verdict. See Diamond 

Shamrock, 791 F.2d at 1431 (McKay, J. concurring) and cases cited 

therein. In light of that duty and the limited nature of our 

review for fundamental error, we uphold the verdict against the 

Bank's belated challenge to its consistency, for the reasons 

stated above. 

We have reviewed the damages awarded by the jury against the 

evidence, both lay and expert, presented on the issue at trial, 

and hold that the Bank has failed to establish the irresistible 

inference of improper cause necessary to warrant modification. 

See Specht v. Jensen, F.2d , Nos. 85-1457, 1533, slip op. 

at 28-29 (10th Cir. filed Nov. 10, 1987). Having disposed of all 

of the issues raised on the Bank's appeal, we turn now to 

plaintiff's appeal from the denial of prejudgment interest. 

Appeal No. 87-1437 

On April 21, 1986, the district court entered judgment for 

plaintiff without reference to or express reservation of the issue 

of prejudgment interest. That judgment became final upon the 

denial of the defendants' post-trial motions on August 18, 1986, 

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Appellate Case: 86-2317 Document: 010110025193 Date Filed: 02/08/1988 Page: 6 
and was timely appealed by the Bank seven days later. Plaintiff's 

subsequent request for prejudgment interest was thus too late to 

provide the district court with jurisdiction over the matter. See 

Garcia v. Burlington Northern R. Co., 818 F.2d 713, 721-22 (10th 

Cir. 1987). Consequently, plaintiff's March 25, 1987, notice of 

appeal, which lacked the benefit of any effective interim tolling 

motion, was several months late. Accordingly, plaintiff's appeal 

must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. See Browder v. 

Director, Dep't. of Corrections, 434 U.S. 257 (1978). 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

Western District of Oklahoma is AFFIRMED; plaintiff's appeal from 

the district court's denial of prejudgment interest is DISMISSED. 

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ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

Appellate Case: 86-2317 Document: 010110025193 Date Filed: 02/08/1988 Page: 7