Court Opinion

ID: 9486002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:35:38.624341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:29.148720
License: Public Domain

FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I believe the parties’ business relationship is more aptly described as a consortium and, accordingly, I dissent.
A “consortium is distinguished from a joint venture in that the consortium members generally do not have a joint interest in the subject matter of the venture (for example, the project to be constructed), do not share in the profits or losses of the venture, and do not undertake any fiduciary duty toward each other unless expressly agreed to under the consortium agreement.” Construction Joint Ventures: Forms & Practice Guide 16 (M. Becker & R. Suchsman eds. 1992). In the context of joint ventures, the term “profits” is defined as “the gain realized from business or investment over and above expenditures.” L & H Leasing Co. v. Dutton, 82 Ohio App.3d 528, 612 N.E.2d 787, 791 (Ct.App.1992). The parties in this ease made no agreement about the sharing of the “gain .'.. over and above expenditures,” but instead merely agreed how to divide certain expenses and the gross receipts. As illustrated in Shaver v. Shirks Motor Express Corp., 163 Ohio St. 484, 127 N.E.2d 355 (1955), an agreement to share revenues is different from an agreement to share profits and cannot form the basis for a joint venture. There, the court noted that two parties had agreed to share revenues from a venture, but noted that “what profits Shirks would make was of no interest to Wiggins, and certainly if Shirks should incur a net loss on his contract, Wiggins would not share in it.” Id. at 361; see also Fedderson v. Goode, 112 Colo. 38, 145 P.2d 981, 985 (1944) (“The chief characteristic of a joint adventure is joint and not a several profit.”) (quotation omitted) (cited with approval in Ford v. McCue, 163 Ohio St. 498, 127 N.E.2d 209, 213 (1955)). This principle was further illustrated when the Ohio Supreme Court emphasized that “the profit accruing must be joint and not several.” Ford, 127 N.E.2d at 213. Because the parties did not share in the profits, I cannot conclude their relationship was a joint venture.1
While I realize that the parties’ numerous use of the term “joint venture” has muddied the water in this case, I do not agree that the parties consistent reference to their arrangement as a joint venture precludes a question of fact on the issue of their intent. The use of the phrase is certainly evidence of their intent, but I do not believe it is conclusive because the phrase has a rather common meaning in everyday parlance. One looking up the phrase “joint venture” in the dictionary is referred to the definition for “joint adventure”, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1220 (1971),2 which is defined as “a partnership or cooperative agreement between two or more persons restricted to a single specific undertaking.” Id. at 1219. Thus, in its non-legal sense, the phrase “joint venture” has a much broader meaning than the one ascribed by law and encompasses what the law refers to as business consortiums as well as joint ventures. People entering contracts should not automatically be held to the specialized and technical meanings assigned by the legal profession; after all, ordinary people routinely use ordinary words and phrases, unaware of the specialized meanings attributed to them by the law.

. The majority rejects Harmon’s claim that the relationship was a business consortium because of the “plain language of the Joint Venture Agreement." Ante at 793. To the extent that this refers to the use of the phrase "joint venture,” I must disagree because I do not believe parties word choices can override the requirement that profits be shared.

. The law also recognizes the two phrases as synonyms. E.g., Black’s Law Dictionary 753 (1979).