Court Opinion

ID: 9734332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:32:03.587722+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:47.958115
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, J.
I agree with the opinion of the majority that the conclusions of the trial court with respect to appellant’s liability are supported by the evidence, findings, and the law. I concur with the result reached by the majority with respect to the affirmance of the amount of damages awarded by the trial court solely because of the procedural limitations upon review dictated by the long-standing rule followed and described in Wood v. Keller, 72 Cal.App.2d 14 [163 P.2d 904],1 There Justice McComb speaking for the Court of *945Appeal in affirming a judgment of a court sitting without a jury states (p. 17) : “. . . the law is established in California that the point that damages are excessive cannot be raised for the first time on appeal, but must be presented to the trial court on motion for a. new trial before an appellate court will consider whether the damages are excessive or not.” There was no motion for a new trial made in the case at bench. Appellant argues that his failure to move for a new trial by reason of excessive damages is excused because he raised the issue in his objections to findings of fact. He argues also that the rule stated in Wood v. Keller, supra, is limited to those situations in which the contention is made that the trial court awarded excessive damages because of passion or prejudice. Both contentions would have us ignore the broad sweep of the long-standing doctrine of appellate procedure. A change in that doctrine, if warranted, should come from a higher tribunal.
The cases cited by appellant to support his contentions do not do so. Schmidt v. Macco Constr. Co., 119 Cal.App.2d 717 [260 P.2d 230] holds only that errors in the admission of evidence and in jury instructions may be raised on appeal without a motion for new trial although those errors contribute to an ultimate error in damages. Roche v. Casissa, 154 Cal.App.2d 785 [316 P.2d 776], states that the rule requiring a motion for new trial as a prerequisite to an appeal on an *946issue of damages is not applicable where the contention is that there is no evidence of any damage at all. Neither decision is apposite to the situation of the case at bench. The issue which appellant now seeks to raise deals with the manner of computation of damages. It does not deal with any error in the proceedings leading to the judgment nor does it encompass a claim that an element necessary to recovery, i.e., damages, was not proved.
A petition for a rehearing ivas denied September 25, 1969, and appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied October 22, 1969.

The damages awarded by the trial court seem to me to be unsupported by substantial evidence. The court found that a right to exchange common shares for preferred shares in Litton Industries acquired in the name *945of appellant husband was community property because it was acquired in the form of a “loan” of common shares, to which the right was attached, upon the credit of the community assets. It then held that knowledge of the existence of the right had been fraudulently concealed from respondent wife in negotiations for a property settlement. It computed damages not on the basis of the value of the right that had been concealed but on the basis of the gross value of the preferred stock obtainable in the exchange.
Such a computation does far more than compensate the injured party for all detriment proximately caused by the wrong. (Civ. Code, § 3333; Goodspeed v. Great Western Power Co., 33 Cal.App.2d 245 [91 P.2d 623, 92 P.2d 410] ; Westerfeld v. New York Life Ins. Co., 129 Cal. 68 [58 P. 92, 61 P. 667] ; Taylor v. Hopper, 207 Cal. 102 [276 P. 990].) Moreover, it ignores the finding on which the community character of the right is based. If in fact there was a loan in the form of common shares of Litton to which was attached the right to exchange those shares for preferred, credit must be taken at some point in the computation for repayment of the loan by the return of the common shares borrowed or their equivalent. The measure of damages adopted by the trial court allows no such credit. It is as if the court, having found that by reason of a loan of $300,000 on the community credit fraudulently concealed from his wife a husband had acquired a parcel of real property worth $330,000, had then computed damages for the concealment as half of the gross $330,000 value of the property ignoring the community obligation to repay the $300,000.