Opinion ID: 159922
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: 1987 Lease Payments

Text: GOA challenges the district court’s award of damages for its failure to make the 1987 lease payments on two grounds. First, it contends that any damages in this regard would be for breach of contract and Garcia never asserted a claim for breach of contract. Second, it contends that the evidence does not support the district court’s finding that GOA did not make these payments. We decline to consider GOA’s first argument because it failed to properly present it to the district court and therefore preserve it for appeal. See Sac & Fox -13- Nation , 213 F.3d at 575. GOA contends that it raised the issue in its “additional” proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law filed after the trial. See GOA’s Opening Br. at 10. In that document, as a proposed finding of fact , GOA asserted that “Garcia did not allege in his Cross-Claim or raise at any time in the litigation a claim for breach of contract, pre-judgment interest, post-judgment interest, or a claim for attorneys fees and costs.” GOA’s App. Vol. 1 at 104. Its proposed conclusions of law did not explain what effect Garcia’s failure to assert a breachof-contract claim might have on Garcia’s damages in general or his recovery for 1987 lease payments, nor, obviously, did it provide the district court with any legal authority supporting this position. (In fact, it failed to present any legal authority supporting its position on this issue until its reply brief on appeal.) Similarly, GOA’s arguments to the court at trial omitted any reference to this issue, see id. Vol. 2 at 170-74, 250-53, 287-302, as did its motion to alter or amend the court’s eventual judgment, see id. Vol. 1 at 120-21. 8 8 GOA had earlier filed its original version of its proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, see Appellant’s App. Vol. 1 at 79-85, and then an amended version of that document, see id. at 86-92. In neither of these documents did it raise the contract-versus-unjust-enrichment argument it now presents. It did assert, in its proposed conclusions of law, that “[t]he doctrine of unjust enrichment does not apply because there are/were adequate remedies of law and one cannot claim equity when there were other causes of action that accrued and expired through the operation of the statute of limitations and through one’s failure to assert.” Id. at 84, 91. Even were we to consider these documents, our conclusion would remain the same. -14- We thus conclude that GOA did not adequately raise in the district court the legal issue of the effect of Garcia’s failure to assert a breach-of-contract claim on his ability to recover damages related to rents due in 1987. See Bancamerica Commercial Corp. v. Mosher Steel of Kan., Inc. , 100 F.3d 792, 798-99 (10th Cir.) (declining to address issue on appeal presented only in vague, ambiguous way in district court), modified on other grounds , 103 F.3d 80 (10th Cir. 1996). Though we have discretion to consider issues on appeal that were not raised in the district court if “proper resolution is beyond doubt or injustice might otherwise result,” Sac & Fox Nation , 213 F.3d at 575, neither of these reasons encourages us to exercise that discretion here. GOA is correct that Garcia asserted only an unjust enrichment claim. But New Mexico law does not strictly enforce the general rule on which GOA’s argument is based, that is, that “one could not sue on a contract and recover on quantum meruit,” New Mexico ex rel. Gary v. Fireman’s Fund Indem. Co. , 355 P.2d 291, 294-95 (N.M. 1960) (relaxing “strict rule” with respect to pleading requirements). In a situation somewhat analogous to this one, the court permitted a plaintiff’s recovery under an unjust enrichment theory despite the existence of an express contract because “his adversary litigate[d] the issue with him on the basis of quantum meruit.” Harbison v. Clark , 284 P.2d 219, 222 (N.M. 1955). Moreover, GOA can hardly claim injustice from the failure to apply the rule, -15- since Garcia’s recovery would be the same under either theory. See United States v. Applied Pharmacy Consultants, Inc. , 182 F.3d 603, 609 (8th Cir. 1999) (holding in rejecting similar argument for application of “wooden” rule that “[t]here is no inconsistency whatsoever, in terms of substance, between the plaintiff’s recovery on a theory of unjust enrichment and what it would have recovered had the contract theory been pursued”). 9 Turning to GOA’s second argument, that the evidence does not support the district court’s finding that it did not make the 1987 payment to either Garcia or the IRS, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error, giving due regard to its opportunity to judge the credibility of witnesses. See Salve Regina College , 499 U.S. at 233 (citing Fed. R. App. P. 52(a)). GOA’s general manager Zanotti initially stated at trial that he knew GOA did not make the 1987 payments to Garcia but could not recall whether the payments were made to the IRS. See GOA’s App. Vol. 2 at 187-88. However, he subsequently testified regarding these payments as follows: Q. You made a determination, a willful determination, not to pay Mr. Garcia the annual rent for those two leases? 9 Even GOA, in its argument regarding the appropriate statute of limitations, admitted that “[w]hile Garcia labeled his claim as one for ‘unjust enrichment,’” it is essentially based on “an implied-in-law contract or an implied duty to pay based upon Gaechter’s continued use of the billboards.” GOA’s Opening Br. at 20-21. -16- A. That’s correct. Q. And you also made a determination that you had no obligation to pay the United States government that money? A. If you want to call it a determination? I made the decision, yes. Q. It wasn’t something that you just forgot to do, it was something that you actually decided to do? A. That’s correct. Id. at 188-89. The court’s finding that GOA did not make the 1987 payments is not clearly erroneous.