Court Opinion

ID: 9865252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:29:05.231639+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:38:10.455647
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Bakke,
dissenting.
No good purpose would be served by a repetition of the allegations of fact, which sufficiently appear in the complaint as set forth in the court’s present and former opinions. The important question is whether they were sufficiently established to support the verdict. I think they were. The fact of plaintiff’s employment by Ramon Solis is not seriously disputed, and though an attempt was made on cross-examination to discredit her testimony concerning said employment the jury believed her. I say it was not seriously disputed, by which I mean that a number of witnesses could have been called to contradict testimony regarding her employment as related. .None was called, so I assume that defendant was satisfied in that regard. It is not seriously contended, nor is there any issue made therof, that $2,500 —or the cancellation of the indebtedness represented by the note in question in that amount — was not reasonable compensation for the services performed.
It is also undisputed that Ramon Solis paid the holder of the note with a $2,500 check of the company. How*178ever, that note was not endorsed to the company, although there was an assignment to it which described the note and trust deed. There is dispute as to whether that assignment was among the papers which Ramon Solis gave to plaintiff. It probably was not, but the copy that was to be delivered to plaintiff allegedly was to have been marked “void.” However, that would not defeat the conversion, but be a part of it.
Complaint is made that we should not permit plaintiff to take advantage of the rule of evidence permitting one to testify against a corporation when that testimony would not be permitted against the deceased individual whose personal affairs had been incorporated. Counsel admit that is the rule and that plaintiff was qualified to testify under the circumstances. Counsel also well know that the remedy for the situation they describe lies with the legislature and not with the judiciary.
However, the rule is not so ill-founded as counsel seeks to make it appear, for it permits exposure of the conduct of individuals which, otherwise might, and could, be well concealed under the corporate name, and if a person sees fit to incorporate his business, the corporation assumes the disadvantages as well as the advantages of the corporate form.
Nor can it be logically urged that defendant was an innocent victim here, because during Ramon Solis’s life he was the company so far as the conversion was concerned. That this was a “one-man” corporation is borne out by the fact that Ramon Solis and his family owned all the stock — their stock being a gift from him — Solis being the general manager and the daughters mere employees, although designated as officers, and Solis conducted the corporation like a household. Therefore, conversion by Solis became the conversion by the company. “In such cases the court ‘will disregard the fiction of corporate entity apart from members of the corporation when it is attempted to be used as a means of *179accomplishing a fraud or an illegal act’.” Gutheil v. Polichio, 103 Colo. 426, 431, 86 P. (2d) 972.
Complaint is made of the failure of plaintiff’s, memory-in regard to her testimony on the first hearing. My observation of the record convinces me that her memory was no worse or better than that of some of the witnesses for defendant, so that remains a factual issue for determination by the jury. As to the receipt, whether there actually was one, that too, was a matter for the jury under the circumstances, but it may be said that as to it, plaintiff was corroborated by her daughter.
Counsel for defendant admit they are not relying on the statute which permits setting aside agreements made to defraud creditors. With the removal of that feature, the case under the former decision becomes an out and out case for the jury, and while present counsel object to the instructions, no exception to giving them was reserved by counsel at the trial. To permit cases to be reversed in this court on the simple expediency of changing counsel on the way up is dangerous practice and succeeding counsel should be held to the record made by their predecessors.
There could be an elaboration of a number of things in this litigation which the trial judge summed up well when he said: “An old man in love with a young woman.” We may not approve and there is not much we can do about it, but we should not permit “the old man’s” family to be the direct beneficiary of his improper conduct, if any.
Mr. Chief Justice Hilliard and Mr. Justice Francis E. Bouck concur in this dissent.