Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-14-08062/USCOURTS-ca10-14-08062-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Richard E. Gillespie
Appellee
Timothy Mellon
Appellant
The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

 

TIMOTHY MELLON, a Wyoming 

resident, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

v. 

THE INTERNATIONAL GROUP FOR 

HISTORIC AIRCRAFT RECOVERY, a 

Delaware non-profit corporation; 

RICHARD E. GILLESPIE, 

 Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 14-8062 

(D.C. No. 1:13-CV-00118-SWS) 

(D. Wyo.)

 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

 

Before BACHARACH, PORFILIO, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

 

 Plaintiff Timothy Mellon was a donor for one of defendants’ expeditions 

looking for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s lost plane. Alleging that defendants 

induced him to make his donation by falsely representing that previous expeditions to 

the same general location had yet to produce conclusive results, he brought this 

 

*

 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this 

appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding 

precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral 

estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with 

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

May 27, 2015

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court

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action asserting claims for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, negligence, and 

violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The 

district court dismissed the negligence and RICO claims under Fed. R. Civ. P. 

12(b)(6) in an early order and then granted summary judgment to defendants on the 

fraud and negligent misrepresentation claims in a published decision, see Mellon v. 

Int’l Grp. Historic Aircraft Recovery, 33 F.Supp.3d 1277 (D. Wyo. 2014). 

Mr. Mellon now appeals, challenging only the grant of summary judgment. 

The district court “shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that 

there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to 

judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). “A dispute is genuine if there is 

sufficient evidence so that a rational trier of fact could resolve the issue either way. 

A fact is material if under the substantive law it is essential to the proper disposition 

of the claim.” Crowe v. ADT Sec. Servs., Inc., 649 F.3d 1189, 1194 (10th Cir. 2011) 

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “For dispositive issues on which the 

plaintiff will bear the burden of proof at trial, he must go beyond the pleadings and 

designate specific facts so as to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence 

of an element essential to his case in order to survive summary judgment.” Cardoso 

v. Calbone, 490 F.3d 1194, 1197 (10th Cir. 2007) (brackets and internal quotation 

marks omitted). And “[e]vidence, including testimony, must be based on more than 

mere speculation, conjecture, or surmise.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

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We review the district court’s determination de novo, applying these same standards. 

Id. 

The district court touched on more than one potential legal deficiency in 

Mr. Mellon’s claims, but it will suffice here to focus on the primary one covering 

both claims: lack of actionable falsity. Under state substantive law, which governs 

this diversity action, see Hiner v. Deere & Co., Inc., 340 F.3d 1190, 1192 (10th Cir. 

2003), falsity is a material element of both a fraud claim (requiring a false 

representation) and a negligent misrepresentation claim (requiring provision of false 

information), Birt v. Wells Fargo Home Mortg., Inc., 75 P.3d 640, 656 (Wyo. 2003). 

And only facts, not opinions, can be actionably false. See id. at 657-58; see also

Universal Drilling Co., LLC v. R & R Rig Serv., LLC, 271 P.3d 987, 997 (Wyo. 

2012). Whether a representation is one of fact or one of opinion is a question of law. 

Birt, 75 P.3d at 658. 

Mr. Mellon based his claims on an implied representation, as the district court 

explained: 

What was affirmatively communicated to [Mr. Mellon] is that 

TIGHAR[1] was planning another expedition in search of the Earhart 

plane. Certainly, on its face, this representation was and is not false, 

nor does [Mr. Mellon] assert the materials provided to him by 

Defendants prior to his donation contained false information. Rather, 

[Mr. Mellon] contends the representation is false because it suggests the 

Earhart plane had not already been found. 

 

1

 “TIGHAR” refers to defendant “The International Group for Historical 

Aircraft Recovery,” the corporation through which defendant Richard E. Gillespie 

mounted expeditions searching for the Earhart wreckage site. 

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Mellon, 33 F.Supp.3d at 1284. Mr. Mellon believes video evidence obtained 

during a prior expedition in 2010 undercut this tacit representation, i.e., “that 

TIGHAR had within its possession critical evidence plainly showing that it 

had likely located . . . Earhart’s wreckage site.”2

 Aplt. Br. at 2. The district 

court concluded that defendants’ implied representation regarding the 

insufficiency of the extant evidence to definitively identify the wreckage 

site—as well as Mr. Mellon’s belief that the site had been found—were, on the 

record developed in the case, matters of opinion, not false factual matters: 

Ultimately, [Mr. Mellon’s] theory is based on his opinion that the video 

footage reveals the Earhart wreckage, apparently believing that the 

proof is self-evident in the footage. Defendants’ representation that 

they were planning another expedition to find the wreckage was based 

on their opinion they had not yet found it. . . . [T]there is no evidence to 

support a finding that at the time Defendants made the alleged 

misrepresentation they had, in fact, found Amelia Earhart’s plane. 

Mellon, 33 F.Supp.3d at 1285 (footnote omitted); see also id. at 1287 

(“Plaintiff has no more than theories and opinions that Earhart’s plane, or parts 

of it, are depicted in the 2010 footage. Defendants disagree. As stated 

previously, [such] expressions of opinion are not [actionable] representations 

 

2

 The video footage was not the only evidence relating to the potential location 

of the Earhart plane, but this new evidence obtained in 2010 is the focal point of 

Mr. Mellon’s claims. Like the district court (and frequently Mr. Mellon himself), we 

thus refer to the footage as a shorthand for all of the evidence from which Mr. Mellon 

believes defendants had or should have determined the location of the plane. 

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of fact . . . .”). The district court summarized its consequent holding on 

summary judgment as follows: 

Defendants represented to [Mr. Mellon] they were planning 

another expedition in their continued quest to find the wreckage of 

Amelia Earhart’s airplane. Upon reading about Defendants’ efforts, 

[he] contacted Defendants and expressed his interest in supporting the 

expedition with a monetary contribution. That’s exactly what the 

parties then did. No false representations were made. The lost had not 

been found . . . or maybe it had. Regardless, no rational trier of fact 

could find Defendants falsely represented they had not found Earhart’s 

plane by embarking on another expedition in hopes of finding 

conclusive evidence to prove it. No matter how convinced or sincere 

[Mr. Mellon] is in his subjective belief and opinion that Amelia 

Earhart’s airplane was or should have been discovered prior to the 

making of his donation, that belief and opinion is insufficient to create a 

genuine dispute of material fact. 

Id. at 1287. 

We agree. As the district court repeatedly emphasized, there is no proof 

in the record that, when the 2010 video footage was reviewed before the 2012 

expedition, objects observed in the footage were in fact from Earhart’s plane. 

Mr. Mellon’s own experts would not confirm that the footage proved the plane 

had been found.3

 Without such proof, any contemporaneous belief expressed 

 

3

 The district court noted that these “experts’ opinion, formed after having the 

benefit of viewing video from both the 2010 and 2012 expeditions, likewise falls 

short of establishing the falsity of Defendants’ representation that they had not found 

the airplane. Rather, the experts simply opine that the 2010 video footage depicts 

man-made objects consistent with parts of the Earhart [plane], leading them to the 

conclusion that the identified objects are likely to have originated from Earhart’s 

[plane].” Mellon, 33 F.Supp.3d at 1285 (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, 

defendants too believed—and publicly stated—that “they had circumstantial but 

strong evidence reinforcing their theory about the location of the wreckage.” Id. 

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about the plane—that it (likely) was or was not in the area where defendants 

suspected it to be when they embarked on the 2012 expedition—was mere 

opinion that could not be false. Mr. Mellon insists a jury should decide what it 

believes the video shows. But, as already noted, distinguishing opinions from 

actionable factual representations is a matter of law, and the district court 

determined—correctly in our view—that beliefs about the possible location of 

Earhart’s plane based on the 2010 video footage were opinions rather than 

facts. Any speculation on the matter by a jury would thus simply be one more 

opinion—both procedurally inappropriate and legally immaterial.4

 

Finally, Mr. Mellon contends there is independent circumstantial 

evidence of fraudulent intent to support his fraud claim:5

 defendants’ secrecy 

about the suggestive 2010 video footage and their negotiation of an agreement 

with the local government to afford them some rights in the event Earhart 

 

4

 Mr. Mellon, who acknowledges that Birt made the opinion/fact distinction a 

question of law, also notes an earlier decision stating that “in doubtful cases the 

question of whether [the operative] representation is an opinion or fact should be left 

to the jury.” White v. Ogburn, 528 P.2d 1167, 1169 (Wyo. 1974). After Birt, it is not 

clear what import, if any, should be attributed to the statement from White, given that 

“questions of law are for courts to determine,” Vassos v. Roussalis, 658 P.2d 1284, 

1286 (Wyo. 1983). We need not opine on the matter, however, because we conclude 

that the disposition here is not “doubtful.” 

5

 It is not clear whether Mr. Mellon raises this contention in response to the 

district court’s brief discussion of the distinct element of intent or whether he means 

to suggest that a demonstration of fraudulent intent can substitute for or obviate an 

antecedent failure to establish that the subject matter is one of fact rather than 

opinion. He does not cite any authority for the latter point here. In any event, the 

evidence is not sufficient to create a triable issue, as explained above. 

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artifacts were discovered during the 2012 expedition. We agree with the 

district court that these efforts are entirely consistent with defendants’ stated 

opinion that the footage lent important support to—but did not confirm—their 

theory of where the plane might be found. See id. at 1281 n.3. The attribution 

of fraudulent intent on the basis of such facially innocent actions is the sort of 

“speculation, conjecture, or surmise” that cannot forestall summary judgment. 

Cardoso, 490 F.3d at 1197 (internal quotation marks omitted); see, e.g., 

Kincheloe v. Milatzo, 678 P.2d 855, 862 (Wyo. 1984) (noting “fraud cannot be 

imputed from facts that are as consistent with an honest intention”). Similarly, 

Mr. Mellon cites defendants’ prompt examination of the new evidence from 

the 2012 expedition, and resultant public announcement of the discovery of a 

debris field, as suggesting a fraudulent motive in connection with defendants’ 

slower processing and more tentative treatment of the results from the 2010 

expedition. Again, the difference in response after the two expeditions is fully 

consistent with an innocent reaction to the obvious difference in circumstances 

and does not create a triable issue of fraud. 

 Mr. Mellon has not demonstrated any error in the district court’s ruling on 

summary judgment. The district court’s judgment is, accordingly, affirmed. 

 Entered for the Court 

 Bobby R. Baldock 

 Circuit Judge 

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