Court Opinion

ID: 9754800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:14:36.922332+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:58.134450
License: Public Domain

Daly, J.
(dissenting). Section 6684 of the General Statutes provides that “[w]hen the goods have been delivered to the buyer, he can not rescind the sale ... if he fails to notify the seller, within a reasonable time, of the election to rescind, or if he fails to return or to offer to return the goods to the seller in substantially as good condition as they were in at the time the property was transferred to the buyer.” The statute gave to the plaintiff a conditional right to return the truck. It was incumbent upon her to establish by evidence that the truck was, when she tendered it, in the condition required by the statute. Keyser v. O’Meara, 116 Conn. 579, 582, 165 A. 793. The only subordinate fact found which can be claimed to furnish a scintilla of support to the .essential conclusion—that at the time the plaintiff offered *367to return the truck it was in substantially as good condition as it was in at the time it was transferred to her—is that “[t]he truck was in substantially the condition ... it was in at the time it was transferred to the plaintiff.” The majority concede that these words alone do not, without construction, constitute support for the essential conclusion. By a process called construction, it is stated that the quoted words mean that “when the plaintiff, by her agent, offered to return the truck and requested the defendants to receive it, the truck ‘was in substantially the condition ... it was in at the time it was transferred to her.’ ” It should be noted that the essential words are added to the finding of a subordinate fact, not by correction of the finding, but by construction. The subordinate fact found by the court is treated as unattacked. “A finding unattacked is presumed to contain all relevant facts, and if the finding fails to state all the material facts, the supreme court must nevertheless decide the case upon the basis of those which do appear.” Maltbie, Conn. App. Proc. (2d Ed.) p. 160.
It is stated in the opinion of the majority that “[t]he construction which we place upon the finding is fortified by the memorandum of decision, which may be consulted in the interpretation of ambiguous or equivocal language in a finding.” The memorandum of decision was not made a part of the finding. The “interpretation of [the] ambiguous or equivocal language in [the] finding” of the subordinate fact violates the long-established rule stated in Stults v. Palmer, 141 Conn. 709, 711, 109 A.2d 592: “The memorandum of decision cannot take the place of a finding. Statements of fact in it cannot be used to supplement the finding unless, for some specific, unusual purpose, the memorandum of decision is ex*368pressly made a part of the finding. ... ‘The cause is to be decided upon the facts found, not upon those contained in the memorandum of decision.’ Turner v. Connecticut Co., 91 Conn. 692, 696, 101 A. 88.” Where the memorandum of decision is not made a part of the finding, “the facts it states cannot be regarded in connection with the finding made for the purposes of appeal. . . . The remedy provided through a correction of the finding will furnish an adequate remedy . . . for the addition to it of facts which ought to have been found.” Crighton v. Jacobs, 100 Conn. 281, 283, 123 A. 437.