Opinion ID: 2197123
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Minn.R.Civ.P. 15.02 (1994) states:

Text: Rule 15.02 AMENDMENTS TO CONFORM TO THE EVIDENCE When issues not raised by the pleadings are tried by express or implied consent of the parties, they shall be treated in all respects as if they had been raised in the pleadings. Such amendment of the pleadings as may be necessary to cause them to conform to the evidence and to raise these issues may be made upon motion of any party at any time, even after judgment; but failure so to amend does not affect the result of a trial of these issues. If evidence is objected to at the trial on the ground that it is not within the issues raised by the pleadings, the court may allow the pleadings to be amended and shall do so freely when the presentation of the merits of the action will be subserved thereby and the objecting party fails to satisfy the court that admission of such evidence would prejudice maintenance of the action or defense upon the merits. The court may grant a continuance to enable the objecting party to meet such evidence. The trial court should have granted the Bullers' post-trial motion to amend their pleadings to include an action for fraud with respect to the 1978 silo purchases [4] if it found that the parties impliedly consented to trial of that issue. The trial court found, however, that the parties did not impliedly consent to try the issue. This finding is reasonably sustained by the evidence as a whole and therefore is not clearly erroneous. In a pretrial conference, the Bullers' counsel moved to amend their claim to allege fraud with a greater particularity. In response to this motion, AOSHPI's counsel noted that the 1983 complaint doesn't have any fraud claim in it and the 1984 complaint involves the 1975 silo. The Bullers' counsel said nothing in response to this statement. The Bullers' amendments only alleged specific representations made by Hawke and AOSHPI and did not indicate whether the representations were relevant to the 1975 or 1978 purchases. Although several of the amendments referred to silos or each silo, indicating that the Bullers' counsel intended to allege fraud with respect to all of the silo sales, none of the allegations pertained to only the 1978 sales, and each of them could be understood as pertaining to just the 1975 sale. Finally, throughout the trial, both sides introduced information relevant to a claim of fraud with respect to the 1978 silo sales, but this evidence was equally relevant to the issue of whether the Bullers had discovered their cause of action for fraud with respect to the 1975 silo. This court has held that consent to try an issue outside the pleadings cannot be implied where the evidence is pertinent to issues actually made by the pleadings. Roberge v. Cambridge Cooperative Creamery Co., 243 Minn. 230, 234, 67 N.W.2d 400, 403 (1954). We hold, therefore, that the trial court's finding on the issue of consent was not clearly erroneous and its failure to grant the respondents' post-trial motion to amend their complaint was not an abuse of discretion.