Court Opinion

ID: 9628271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:15:40.435849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:55.823891
License: Public Domain

ROONEY, Justice,
specially concurring, with whom McCLINTOCK, Justice, joins.
I concur with the three determinations of the majority of the court which are pertinent to this case. Those are:
1. Absent statutory requirement to the contrary,1 delivery of a tangible chattel or security is not necessary to an inter vivos gift thereof where the gift is evidenced by a formally executed document or instrument, which document or instrument is itself delivered. (See cases cited in support thereof in majority opinion.)
2. The intent of the parties in this case can be ascertained from the instruments themselves. (In Instruction No. 10, the court stated that the language therein “is unambiguous.”2 The instruments as a whole can be said to reflect an other than literal meaning to the phrase “upon delivery to her of said articles” in paragraph 2 of the instruments.)3
3. Therefore, the issue relative to the intention of the parties or construction of the instruments was one of law and should not have been submitted to the jury.
However, I do not agree with the possible suggestion in the majority opinion that attention could be given to other facts adduced at trial in making this determination.4 There is no question but that if resort to extraneous evidence is necessary in interpretation of the ambiguous or doubtful terms or language of a contract, the question is one for the jury under proper instructions. Horvath v. Sheridan-Wyoming Coal Co., 58 Wyo. 211, 131 P.2d 315 (1942); Worland School District v. Bowman, Wyo., 445 P.2d 364 (1968), appeal after remand, 531 P.2d 889 (1975).

. E. g., § 31-4-309, W.S.1977, re motor vehicles; §§ 34-21-701 et seq., W.S.1977, re warehouse receipts; §§ 34-13-101, et seq., W.S. 1977, re Gifts to Minors Act, etc.

. See footnote 6 in majority opinion.

. This conclusion can be made in the face of the testimony of the lawyer who drew up the instrument that “I felt that when I prepared it and gave it to them, it was sufficient as long as they complied with whatever physical things that they had to do to complete the gift.”

.If there was ambiguity in the language of the instruments, there are a number of disputed facts for resolution by the jury in ascertaining the intention, such as, purchase of the Spode china and cut glass by appellee or both appel-lee and appellant rather than by only appellant, and its ownership before the death of Mrs. Jackson by appellee and Mrs. Jackson and not only by Mrs. Jackson. The delivery of the jewelry to appellant “for temporary” use. Appellant’s acknowledgment of no residence in the house since 1965 as distinguished from partial possession (not ownership) for twelve years prior to the death of Mrs. Jackson, etc.