Court Opinion

ID: 9461727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:23:17.64684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:14.199884
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting)-
With great respect for the opinion of the court, I nonetheless dissent from setting aside the verdict of the jury. The opinion of the court is a clear, thorough *750and accurate statement of Florida’s law (applicable to this contract) relative to transfer of ownership of stock and relative to the doctrine of estoppel. But a review of the District Judge’s charge convinces me that he, too, understood the applicable Florida law and provided the jury with all of the essentials of that law which were necessary to their decision.
The real question, as I see the matter, is whether this record is (as the court’s opinion appears to hold) devoid of evidence to support plaintiff’s claims 1) that the transfer of the bankrupt’s interest in Monastery Gardens, Inc., to defendants took place within four months of bankruptcy and when defendants knew or should have known he was bankrupt, or 2) that defendants’ conduct in leaving the bankrupt in absolute control of the property misled other creditors to their detriment so as to estop defendants from relying upon the defense of their asserted 1962 title to the stock.
Our question on review of the District Court’s denial of a directed verdict is whether the factual record so overwhelmingly points to a conclusion favoring defendants that reasonable minds cannot disagree. 5A J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 50.02[1], at 2320-30 (2d ed. 1974). The Supreme Court has also stated the standard of review thus in Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp.:
The Court of Appeals was, of course, bound to view the evidence in the light most favorable to Continental and to give it the benefit of all inferences which the evidence fairly supports, even though contrary inferences might reasonably be drawn.6
Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., 370 U.S. 690, 696, 82 S.Ct. 1404, 1409, 8 L.Ed.2d 777 (1962).
But here the assets which were transferred to defendants (admittedly within four months of the bankruptcy petition) were assets paid by a third party to the bankrupt as president of Monastery Gardens, Inc., and this transaction was completed in this form with defendants’ full knowledge and consent. In addition, clearly defendants permitted the bankrupt successfully, to pose as both the president and the owner of the Monastery Gardens, Inc., thus enabling the bankrupt to divert corporate assets through at least one obviously fraudulent transaction in order to satisfy the bankrupt’s personal obligation and also to do business with the appearance of affluence with others, including some of the current claimants in this bankruptcy proceeding.
While the cold written record which we review as an appellate court may be read as favoring defendants, I cannot escape the force of the propositions that our system of law provides for resolution of fact disputes by juries, that it is a jury’s prerogative to determine the credibility of witnesses, and that a jury verdict should not be set aside if there is evidence (including inferences from evidence) which súpports the verdict.
I would affirm the judgment.

. As Professor Moore has indicated, “In ruling on the motion [for directed verdict] the trial court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is made. On appeal, likewise, the appellate court must consider the evidence in its strongest light in favor of the party against whom the motion for directed verdict was made, and must give him the advantage of every fair and reasonable intendment that the evidence can justify.” 5 Moore’s Federal Practice 2316 (2d ed., 1951). See Pawling v. United States, 8 U.S. 219, 4 Cranch 219, 2 L.Ed. 601; Gunning v. Cooley, 281 U.S. 90, 50 S.Ct. 231, 74 L.Ed. 720; Tennant v. Peoria &. P. U. R. Co., 321 U.S. 29. Cf. Smith v. Reinauer Oil Transport, 256 F.2d 646, 649 (C.A. 1st Cir.).