Court Opinion

ID: 9633195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:37:34.122427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:11:12.504094
License: Public Domain

ELLETT, Justice:
(concurring and dissenting) .
I concur in reversing the judgment insofar as punitive damages are concerned. However, I cannot concur in affirming the judgment as to compensatory damages.
On or about October 21, 1964, Mr. Broadbent bought from a Mr. Bennion and received a bill of sale from him for cattle as follows:
73 cows at $125.00 2 cows at 62.50 1 1 J $ 9,250.00
50 calves (mixed) 3,250.00
Total $12,500.00
This was an arm’s length transaction between two ranchers, each of whom knew the value of cattle.
Mr. Bennion had sold his ranch and livestock to Mr. Amoss, but because of defaults on the part of Amoss, Bennion had undertaken to repossess the ranch. Ben-nion sold the cattle to Mr. Broadbent in good faith, believing that he had the right to do so. It subsequently turned out that such was not the case.
This action was commenced on October 28, 1964, just one week after the transaction and before the dispute between Ben-nion and Amoss had been adjudicated. The complaint prayed for the return of 83 cows and 51 calves, and in case return would not be possible, then for damages in the sum of $14,040, the value thereof.
In May 1972, Mr. Amoss moved to file an amended complaint wherein he alleged that the value of the personal property converted was $18,000, although the prayer of his amended complaint as to the amount claimed for the cattle was the same as in his original complaint, viz., $14,040. The trial court denied the motion, and no appeal was taken from that ruling. Thereafter, to wit, on August 29, 1972, the case was tried. The defendant gave evidence of the value of the cattle to the effect that the price paid was the fair market value for them at the time and place of purchase from Bennion.1 The foreman for plaintiff testified that he sat on his horse in a borrow pit and counted the cattle as they crossed the road at defendant’s ranch and that there were 83 cows and 51 calves. He said he could not see the brands on some *170of the cattle but he knew them all. When asked if he had an opinion as to the value of the cattle, he replied: “My opinion, if I recall actually at that time, I penciled the cattle and they were somewhere 20 and 21 thousand dollars worth of cattle.”
He did not say that he thought that to be the value of the cattle. He only said that if he recalled, he had penciled them between the figures given. He never said that he did recall, and even if he had recalled what he penciled them at, it would be no proof of their then market value, for a man may pencil any figure he cares to write. The witness said he had assumed the cattle weighed 800 pounds each, although he did not weigh them.
Based upon this testimony, the plaintiff moved to amend the prayer of his complaint to ask for $21,000 as the value of the cattle. The amendment was permitted, although the witness said he “penciled” between $20,000 and $21,000. That statement would of necessity require a figure less than $21,000 if it were between $20,000 and $21,000. Defendant objected to the amendment.
While amendments ordinarily may-be allowed in the discretion of the trial court, it is my opinion that the court in- this case abused his discretion and erred in allowing the amendment.
I would remand the case with directions to grant a new trial unless plaintiff would consent to a remittitur of the amount by which the judgment rendered exceeds what it should have been based upon the prayer of the complaint, to wit, $14,040, as being the value of the cattle. I would award costs to the appellant.
CROCKETT, J., concurs in the views expressed in the concurring and dissenting opinion of ELLETT, J.

. Amoss had been allowed a credit for $12,470 for these cattle in a judgment in favor of Bennion in a prior proceeding between the two.