Court Opinion

ID: 9631584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:43:50.089151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:57.605236
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. Mr. Justice CROCKETT makes much of the facts that incidents testified to relating to disclosure were incidents occurring outside plaintiff’s presence, and were testified to by witnesses whose interests were adverse to plaintiff, and whose testimony was “obviously suffused with a high degree of self-interest”, implying that we should not lend too much credence to such evidence, though undisputed. It is highly unlikely that the complaining witnesses would take the accused along with them to see the County Attorney, and it is equally improbable that such complainants would not have interests adverse to plaintiff’s, but there is nothing in the record indicating that complainants prostituted themselves by testimony “obviously suffused with a high degree of self-interest.” The same self-interest about which the main opinion speaks as being a factor in evaluating or discounting testimony, well may have been the factor in this case that led the jury to hold against defendants irrespective of any question of full disclosure. Dislike for defendants may have had something to do with it too.
The only pertinent question here is whether, before signing a complaint against the plaintiff for embezzlement, respondents made a full disclosure of material facts in their possession, to a deputy County Attorney, who, after filing the complaint, moved its dismissal which was granted.
I am convinced that the trial court did not err in its conclusion that there was no evidence that respondents had not made a full disclosure, since plaintiff adduced no evidence to controvert the testimony of both the deputy County Attorney and the respondents that the two key exhibits, a contract and a bond, were deposited with the County Attorney prior to his filing of the complaint. No one denied that such documents were in the hands of the County Attorney before he filed the complaint. It is impossible to determine how the jury, on special verdicts, found otherwise, except *195possibly by mistake, since the written verdict indicates ^that in answering “yes” to the question, “Do you find from the preponderance of the evidence that the defendants prior to the issuance of the criminal complaint * * * failed to disclose to Mr. Taylor the following: (a) the contents of Exhibit 1 (contract). Answer “yes” or “no.” (b) * * * (c) * * * (d) The contents of Exhibit 4 (bond). Answer “yes” or “no,” the jury had written in “no” and had thereafter drawn lines through the “no” and substituted “yes.” The jury made changes from “no” to “yes” and from “yes” to “no” in six out of eight of the lettered subdivisions relating to exhibits referred to in the interrogatory. (Parentheses supplied).
Nor can I see how the jury possibly could have answered “yes” to the question: “Do you find * * * that the defendants failed to furnish or produce any information or documents requested by Mr. Taylor * * when the only evidence in this case having to do with such a question was the testimony of Mr. Taylor that he did request information and the documents in question, and that everything he requested was furnished before the complaint was filed, together with the testimony of Mr. Pope that he did supply the documents before the complaint was filed.
The only peg upon which the. main opinion can attempt to hang its hat is Mr. Taylor’s answer to a question to the effect that if he had been advised that plaintiff could have put the money in his own bank account and checked it to the company, would such information have made any difference. Mr. Taylor said he thought it would have made a difference. Difficulty with the main opinion’s treatment of that testimony is that it assumes a fact not shown in the record, — that the plaintiff paid the difference to the company by check. The record shows he did no such thing, but that he failed to pay the company by check or otherwise. Of course Mr. Taylor was not only correct but quite judicious in pointing out by necessary implication in his answer, that had payment been made there could have been no basis for the issuance of a complaint. The question and answer may have shown a failure to disclose a custom of payment, but it did not show a failure to disclose the material fact of lack of actual payment. Facts already had been disclosed showing that such custom of payment had not been followed, since plaintiff had not written a check and paid the company, and in failing to follow any custom of payment, whether by check or cash, and his having kept the money certainly gave reasonable cause to believe he had converted the company’s cash. Hence, it appears that the question and answer, at best, could have been interpreted as showing a failure to disclose *196something that was quite immaterial and of no importance where evidence had been produced of an actual conversion of the funds. Irrespective of talk about practices of the salesmen, the money was not paid over. The question and answer reflected no failure to disclose pertinent facts, and there is nothing else in the record that would point to any such failure.
The main opinion’s fashioning of a debtor-creditor relationship from the facts here seems to strain factors pointing to a principal-agent relationship to arrive un-warrantedly at a different relation, and hardly squares with the reasoning in our recent case of Salt Lake Transp. Co. v. Board of Review, 5 Utah 2d 87, 296 P.2d 983.
The discussion as to how many times complainants saw Taylor and disagreement as to dates seems unimportant since everyone, including the County Attorney, agrees that all documents requested and necessary were supplied before complaint issued.
I subscribe to the complimentary generalization about the jury system, but point out that the “right so fundamental and sacred” which “should be jealously guarded by the courts,” should not be made an instrument for abuse because of those high-sounding phrases. The other citizen has rights too, which is also a “right so fundamental and sacred” that also “should be jealously guarded by the courts,” — the-right to expect that a court will dispossess a jury that has gone haywire, — as the trial court in this case, in my opinion, quite properly did.