Opinion ID: 361017
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Claim of Fraud.

Text: 54 In submitting the Millers' claim based upon fraud to the jury, the trial court instructed the jury as follows: 55 You are instructed that the Court has ruled in a prior proceeding that the defendant was not entitled to require that any of the proceeds of the sale of land to the Burlington Northern be applied against the mortgage debt. You are further instructed that the plaintiffs are entitled to damages for withholding of the sum of.$31,400.00 from them during the period from November 8, 1972, through April 22, 1974. The measure of such damages is 6 per cent interest thereon during said period, or, in the alternative, such actual damages that you may find from the evidence herein that plaintiffs sustained proximately caused by the withholding of said funds. 56 In view of the conclusions that we have reached in part III of this opinion, it is obvious that a verdict based upon this instruction cannot stand. 57 In addition, we are compelled to conclude that the record does not support any claim that the plaintiffs had been defrauded. Plaintiffs' claim of fraud is succinctly stated in the court's instructions to the jury: 58 First, that representatives of the Federal Land Bank Association of Billings represented to the plaintiffs that if plaintiffs wanted to make a settlement with Burlington Northern Inc. for the purpose of right of way access for a spur railroad track, that the Federal Land Bank would only require payment to it under its mortgage of one-half of the amount allocated for payment allocated for land conveyed to the Burlington Northern Inc. exclusive of the amount allocated to severance damages; second, that the representations were false; . . . seventh, that the plaintiffs relied upon the truth of the representations; . . . ninth, that the plaintiffs were consequently and proximately injured by their reliance upon the representations. . . . 59 The record shows that the only thing that the Millers can claim that they did in reliance upon the alleged misrepresentations by the officers of the Association was to make the settlement with the Railroad. There is no claim that the settlement was not a fair settlement. There is no claim that making the settlement damaged the Millers. The court properly rejected as speculative proffered testimony by one of the Millers that had it not been for what they were told by the representatives of the Association, they would have obtained a higher settlement. In short, the notion that the Millers were induced by the representations to take the settlement that they made, and that somehow they might have done something different but for the representations, is sheer speculation and not a basis upon which to say that the Millers relied upon the truth of the representations to their detriment. The Millers are not repudiating the settlement. 60 The only damages that the Millers suffered as a result of the Bank's failure to carry out the representations that the Millers say that they relied upon was a delay in their obtaining the money from the settlement. The normal measure of damage for the withholding of money is the legal rate of interest, (R.C.Mont.1947 §§ 17-303, 47-122; See also 22 Am.Jur.2d Damages, § 180, pp. 257-58) and that rate of interest the Millers will recover on whatever portion of the settlement money they are ultimately held to have been entitled to receive. 61 The Millers tried to show that because the settlement money was withheld from them, they had to borrow money elsewhere at somewhat higher rates of interest. The showing was based upon after the fact ratiocination. They also claimed that one of them made a number of trips to Billings to try to persuade the representatives of the Bank to let them have the money. However, it came out that this plaintiff, Robert Miller, was going to college in Billings, that he was there frequently, and that he thus had no particular reason to make a special trip to Billings to talk to the Bank. He failed to identify any particular trip as having that purpose. These kinds of speculative claims of damages will not do. 62 In short, we are of the opinion that the Millers' claim for relief for fraud and deceit is without sufficient support in the evidence and should be dismissed. 63 It follows that this is not a proper case for an award of punitive damages and the verdict of the jury awarding $20,000.00 punitive damages must also be reversed. 64