Court Opinion

ID: 9550591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:37:45.937314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:54.940785
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
*23In support of the petition for rehearing there was a brief for the appellant by R. G. Diefenderfer of Sheridan, Wyoming.
OPINION ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Riner, Justice.
Counsel for appellant in this case has filed a petition for rehearing, being dissatisfied with the result the court reached which was an affirmance of the action of the district court of Sheridan County, Wyoming, in entering judgment against counsel’s client, Claude R. Tracy, upon the latter’s refusal to further plead after the court had sustained a demurrer to his amended petition.
The brief in support of the petition for a rehearing as usual reiterates statements appearing in appellant’s original brief and which were duly considered by this court prior to the rendition of the opinion filed in this case, and which the petition for rehearing now attacks. It is unnecessary to review these matters again.
Complaint is made that this court disregarded its rules by holding that it was necessary for counsel to file a reply brief to dispute charges made in respondent’s brief as to the conduct of Tracy in drinking intoxicating liquor to excess. It would seem that counsel has misinterpreted the purport of the original opinion herein. No such requirement was announced in that opinion. The point made by the opinion was that the charge was not denied. At the time of the oral hearing before this court, ample opportunity was afforded counsel to deny the truth of any statements in respondent’s *24brief which he deemed not in accord with the facts. He failed to avail himself of that opportunity. As a matter of fact even in Tracy’s petition for a rehearing now before us the charge is not flatly denied. What was said in respondent’s brief was merely an elaboration of the charge contained in the School Board’s letter of March 27th, 1951. Tracy’s amended petition itself to which the demurrer was sustained, as above stated, did not allege that the charge in the letter of the Board was untrue. This allegation could easily have been inserted in that pleading and naturally would have been if it were based on fact.
Again as to the charge in that letter quoted in the opinion heretofore filed, Tracy could also have met it by pleading further upon the demurrer being sustained, filing an amended petition which denied the truth of the allegation, gone to trial and supported his denial by proof in open court. This also he declined to do. As pointed out in the original opinion herein where a refusal to amend a pleading is made the court may assume that the facts justifying an amendment do not exist.
Counsel points out in his petition for a rehearing that there are not very many telephones in Clearmont, Wyoming, it being a small community. He does not say that no member of the Board had a telephone, or that the School building was without one, or that appellant wrote a letter to the Board wherein he denied the truth of the charge and his letter was disregarded or that he contacted the Board members personally and they refused to listen to him. He does not deny that any one of several methods of communicating his views to the Board were available and that he saw fit to adopt none of them.
*25If Tracy had really desired a formal hearing there can be no doubt he could easily have obtained it. His actions in and out of court disclose he did not want one.
We do not feel that an unjust result was reached in this matter by either the Board, the district court of Sheridan County, Wyoming, or this court through the opinion filed. It results from what has above been said that the petition for a rehearing should be denied and that an order to that effect should be entered.

Petition Denied.

Blume, C. J. and Ilsley, J. concur.