Court Opinion

ID: 9543269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:43:49.760571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:02.281986
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
In this case, the Court of Appeals was moved to award fees to an appellee because it determined that an appellant filed a meritless appeal. This Court has declared that doing so was an abuse of discretion and vacated the order of fees, apparently concluding that the issues presented met the announced standard: plausibility.
Appellants are individuals who applied to purchase tickets for games of the Indianapolis Colts. Lesher received the tickets he wanted; attorney Dillon did not. Lesher filed a complaint seeking an injunction to halt the ticket sale and compensation for alleged wrongdoing by the Colts. Dillon joined the lawsuit somewhat later, when the parties sought to have the litigation certified as a class action.
The parties submitted the matter on stipulated facts and filed cross motions for summary judgment, agreeing that there was no dispute about the dispositive facts. The trial court granted the Colts' motion for summary judgment. Appellants filed an appeal, arguing, among other things, that there were dispositive facts which precluded summary judgment.
Appellants' legal claims have been rejected unanimously by all three levels of Indiana's judiciary. Not a single judge has regarded even one argument as sufficiently worthwhile to survive summary judgment. Though losing a lawsuit hardly makes one's claims frivolous, I mention just three of appellants' arguments to illustrate why the Court of Appeals order of fees should be allowed to stand.
A party may voluntarily engage in a drawing, win it, and still seek to have the drawing set aside. Among appellants' arguments rejected on appeal was a claim that the blind drawing used to select ticket purchasers from among the many who wanted to purchase violated the constitu*158tional prohibition against lotteries. Ind. Const., Art. XV, § 8. Of course, both parties had voluntarily submitted their ticket applications and Lesher prevailed. As a party who benefitted from the drawing, Lesher should not be heard to challenge it.
A party may send his property to another and claim that the latter possesses it without authority. Appellants, who sent their money to the Colts voluntarily and never requested a refund, also claim that the Colts "exerted unauthorized control" over their funds and committed criminal conversion, violating Ind.Code § 85-43, 4-8.
A purchaser who receives that which he orders within the promised time is entitled to interest, Appellants also claimed that the Colts were unjustly enriched by virtue of not paying ticket applicants interest for the period between receipt of applications and the date of distribution of tick ets and refunds. By vacating the order of fees against Lesher, who got his tickets, the Court necessarily determines that he had a plausible claim that an advance sale, delivered when he was told it would, without any prior agreement for interest, should result in payment of interest.
T think it was an appropriate exercise of discretion by the Court of Appeals to order that appellee be compensated for responding to these arguments.