Court Opinion

ID: 9550963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:45:47.058644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:49.899784
License: Public Domain

DE CONCINI, Justice.
I dissent.
The appellant in his brief makes this statement: “The findings of fact by the trial judge are not disputed. The only issue *401before this court is whether the trial court properly applied the law to the facts.”
With no facts in dispute, the majority has quoted evidence to supplement the findings of fact which, it says, negatives the trial court’s conclusion. I do not agree with the majority on that point.
The lower court found, and it is not disputed, that the- stock sold was the stock of Hadley and not Thorne’s nor the corporation’s. The majority have inferred from the evidence quoted that the money went into the coffers of the corporation and thereby benefitted Thorne. There is no evidence to sustain that except by inference, and even if it were true, it might have been a loan to the corporation which, to my view, would be different than a sale of the corporation’s stock. Regardless of what it was there is no evidence to sustain these words by the majority opinion: “* * * there can be no doubt that this was an investment in the' company and that the money paid by plaintiff went into the coffers of the corporation * *
It is too well known to need citations that this court is not a fact-finding body. In this case no assignment of error was directed to the incorrectness of the trial court’s findings of fact. In such a case the findings are deemed conclusive. With no finding that the money went into the corporation’s coffers, and no evidence to sustain such a finding except by inference, which the trial court is not bound to so infer, this court should not disturb the decision on the basis of its previous rulings. See Valley Nat. Bank of Phoenix v. Carrow, 71 Ariz. 87, 223 P.2d 912.