Mad River Boat Trips, Inc. v. Jackson Hole Whitewater, Inc.

818 P.2d 1137, 1991 Wyo. LEXIS 159, 1991 WL 208044
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 18, 1991
DocketNo. 91-70
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 818 P.2d 1137 (Mad River Boat Trips, Inc. v. Jackson Hole Whitewater, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mad River Boat Trips, Inc. v. Jackson Hole Whitewater, Inc., 818 P.2d 1137, 1991 Wyo. LEXIS 159, 1991 WL 208044 (Wyo. 1991).

Opinion

URBIGKIT, Chief Justice.

This appeal provides a thoughtful and even creative second sequence in the litiga-tive campaign involving the sale of two United States Forest Service special use permits for conducting float trips on the Snake River in Teton County, Wyoming. See Mad River Boat Trips, Inc. v. Jackson Hole Whitewater, Inc., 803 P.2d 366 (Wyo.1990) (Mad River I). This second appeal involves claimed attorney’s fees and damages first raised after this court reversed the trial court’s original decision and permitted appellant to rescind its contract to sell rights to the permits.

Rescission has not occurred since appellant Mad River Boat Trips, Inc. has not yet refunded payments to appellee in order to be in compliance with the first appellate “victory.” Notwithstanding that incomplete status, this intermediate stage of the litigation causes us to consider the trial court’s denial of attorney’s fees and damages which appellant desires to obtain to offset or minimize its refund obligations of about $54,500 constituting the amount previously paid by appellee Jackson Hole Whitewater, Inc. before the decision of this court ordered the sales agreement rescission in Mad River I.

[1138]*1138Information about how two boaters can fight over the United States Forest Service special use permits is detailed in our first decision. It suffices for present purposes to recognize that rescission of the sales agreement occurred by failure of a condition precedent in the written undertaking. With reversal, appellant now comes to this court with the appearance of reluctance to refund payments made which is required to accomplish the contract rescission.

Following issuance of the mandate in Mad River I, present (and prior) appellee filed a motion to compel compliance involving specifically a refund of contractual payments. An order in conformity by the trial court was entered stating:

Plaintiff has filed a Motion for Compliance with the Mandate of the Supreme Court issued herein.
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff, Jackson Hole Whitewater, Inc., is hereby directed to take all actions necessary to have the rights to the special use permits which are the subject matter of this action transferred back to the Defendant, Mad River Boat Trips, Inc., upon the payment by Mad River Boat Trips, Inc. to Plaintiff of all sums paid by Plaintiff as consideration for the initial transfer of the two permits to Plaintiff.

Responsive to the repayment order, appellant submitted a claim for offset purposes against the $54,557.26 to be refunded. This setoff, in an unstated amount, would first come from contractually provided attorney’s fees incurred in the prior trial and appeal claimed by it as the successful litigant. Additionally requested were damages for appellee’s “wrongful refusal to accept return of the monies previously paid” when termination of the contract had been first demanded before the litigation started. Appellant identified the damages as lost revenue for the time appellee operated under the assignment of the two permits during 1989 and 1990 while the contract was still in force.

The trial court denied a hearing and denied the claims of both attorney’s fees and damages by a five-page order in February 1991. The decision was based upon the discretionary authority to award or deny attorney’s fees and on the basis that a damage claim had not been pleaded nor proven.1 With this sequential history of [1139]*1139Mad River II, it is necessary to examine pleadings and issues in Mad River I.

In its 1989 complaint, appellee sued to require appellant to transfer the two United States Forest Service special use permits. Although the motion practice was active during the next several months, the only responsive pleading filed, including the filing and withdrawal of a notice of appeal by appellant, was a motion to dismiss. In July 1989, the trial court, following the motion to dismiss, entered a judgment construing the contract (the decision subsequently reversed by Mad River I) and, in October, held a two-day hearing on damage claims by the appellee against appellant. With the “Final Judgment” entered on November 1, 1989 from which the first appeal was taken, appellant had within this record as a responsive pleading to appellee's specific performance and damage complaint only the original motion to dismiss which had been adversely determined by the decision and judgment validating the sales agreement.2 At this juncture, within Mad River II, appellant now seeks to interject into the lawsuit a claim for attorney’s fees and contract damages. Like the trial court, we reject the effort.

With this extended factual background, the issues stated by appellant are:

1. Whether the trial court erred as a matter of law by denying Appellant’s motion requesting a hearing to recover its reasonable attorney’s fees as the prevailing party and denying Appellant its reasonable attorney’s fees upon proper proof.
2. Whether the trial court erred as a matter of law by denying Appellant’s motion requesting a hearing to allow Appellant to offer proof of and recover lost profit damages suffered by Appellant as a result of Appellant’s loss of use of the two (2) United States Forest Service (“USFS”) special use permits and Appellant’s right to setoff its damages and attorney’s fees against the Appellee’s payments held by Appellant.

The appellee differently asks:

1. Did the trial court properly deny appellant attorney fees under the attorney’s fees term of a contract which the Wyoming Supreme Court has previously determined was not effective?
2. Did the trial court abuse its discretion in denying appellant’s claim for attorney’s fees?
3. Did the trial court properly deny appellant’s counter-claims for damages and attorney’s fees where the appellant [1140]*1140had not previously asserted such counter-claims?

We rephrase the appellate topics:

1. What pleading is presented by a motion to dismiss to establish the issues providing a basis for award of damages and attorney’s fees?
2. Are attorney’s fees, even though provided by the terms of the agreement, awardable upon an appeal granted rescission judgment rescinding the contract for failure of an external condition precedent?
3. Even though the agreement at issue provides for attorney’s fees, is the award to the successful litigant under these circumstances discretionary with the trial court?

Although we find both the second and third issues to be challenging and perhaps broad, our decision ends with resolution of the first issue.

Without the extended scope of some pleading seeking damage and attorney’s fees having been filed before the final decision now favored by appellate reversal, appellant is confined to what it demanded in its initial pleadings which was invalidation of the sales agreement and reversal of the buyer’s damage award which we addressed in Mad River I.

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Bluebook (online)
818 P.2d 1137, 1991 Wyo. LEXIS 159, 1991 WL 208044, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mad-river-boat-trips-inc-v-jackson-hole-whitewater-inc-wyo-1991.