Moore v. Moore

835 P.2d 1148, 1992 Wyo. LEXIS 97, 1992 WL 175904
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 29, 1992
Docket92-11
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 835 P.2d 1148 (Moore v. Moore) 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
Moore v. Moore, 835 P.2d 1148, 1992 Wyo. LEXIS 97, 1992 WL 175904 (Wyo. 1992).

Opinions

MACY, Chief Justice.

We are asked to review a judgment on a lien. The bailee, Appellee Jerry Wayne Moore, filed the lien against livestock for reimbursement of feed and storage costs. Appellant Susan Marie Moore filed a counterclaim and argued that the livestock which were the subject of the bailment did not receive proper care.

We affirm.

[1150]*1150Ms. Moore presents the following issues for our review:

I. The trial [c]ourt erred in failing to grant [Ms. Moore’s] Motion For Joinder.
II. The trial [cjourt erred in denying [Ms. Moore’s] Motion For Judgment for [Ms. Moore] on [Mr. Moore’s] Complaint at the end of the ... presentation of [Mr. Moore’s] case.
III. The trial [c]ourt erred in entering the Order and Judgment For Lien in favor of [Mr. Moore] and against [Ms. Moore] in the findings by the [c]ourt;
(i) that feed and storage liens began to accrue October 12, 1989,
(ii) that [Ms. Moore] had no Counterclaim or merits for proving such Counterclaim or that there were any damages derived from acts or omissions to act by [Mr. Moore],
(iii) that the evidence presented clearly established an involuntary bailment of [Ms. Moore’s] animals with [Mr. Moore] and that [Mr. Moore] was only held to a standard of care requiring that he not commit waste,
(iv) that [Mr. Moore] did not commit waste upon [Ms. Moore’s] animals,
(v) that [Mr. Moore] was not required to give the same degree of care to [Ms. Moore’s] animals that [Ms. Moore] would have and,
(vi) that [Ms. Moore] was negligent and [Mr. Moore] was not.

Mr. Moore and Ms. Moore were granted a divorce on October 12, 1989. Moore v. Moore, 809 P.2d 255, 256 (Wyo.1991). The district court divided the marital property, awarding to Ms. Moore, among other things, ten horses, a five-stall porta barn, all sheep and lambs on the ranch, oats, one-half of the hay on the ranch, and one-half of the proceeds from the sale of eleven sacks of wool. When Mr. Moore took possession of the ranch, Ms. Moore did not have a place to keep her livestock. Id. at 257. Therefore, she left the livestock on Mr. Moore’s ranch.

Mr. Moore filed a lien for feed and storage costs he incurred during the period Ms. Moore left her livestock on his ranch. He filed a lien enforcement action on May 21, 1990, which alleged that he had repeatedly asked Ms. Moore to remove her property from the ranch. The complaint requested a judgment and an order directing that the property be sold at a public or private sale pursuant to Wyo.Stat. § 29-7-105 (Supp. 1991) and that the proceeds be used to pay the costs of the sale and for feed, pasture, and storage expenses. In the alternative, Mr. Moore requested a judgment against Ms. Moore for costs, attorney’s fees, and interest.

Ms. Moore answered the complaint and filed a counterclaim, alleging that Mr. Moore did not allow her to take possession of her property despite her repeated requests. She counterclaimed for $15,000 in damages to her registered quarter horses, claiming that they did not receive proper care, and for $100,000 in damages to her herd of brood mare quarter horses, arguing that Mr. Moore failed to properly care for and breed her brood mares. She also claimed damage to her sheep herd and a loss resulting from damage to the sacks of wool she left on the ranch.

After hearing the evidence, the court found that Ms. Moore was not entitled to any damages on her counterclaim and that Mr. Moore was entitled to a judgment on his lien in the amount of $4,100. A timely notice of appeal followed.

Motion for Joinder

During the proceedings before the district court, Ms. Moore filed a motion to have the lien action joined with the divorce action. Ms. Moore argued that the cases should be joined because the issues and the property were the same and the cases were so similar that they could be determined in one trial. Having separate hearings, Ms. Moore argued, would result in a needless duplication and waste the court’s and the parties’ time. Ms. Moore also contended that, since this Court required an accounting of the property awarded in the divorce action, it would be helpful to have the accounting and the lien action joined.

Although she did not cite it in her original motion, Ms. Moore now cites W.R.C.P. [1151]*1151181 as support for her joinder argument. At the time Ms. Moore made her joinder motion, that rule provided in pertinent part:

(a) Joinder of claims. — A party asserting a claim to relief as an original claim, counterclaim, cross-claim, or third-party claim, may join, either as independent or as alternate claims, as many claims, legal or equitable, as he has against an opposing party.

While this rule allowed parties to bring multiple claims in one action, it did not require that subsequent related claims be joined.

In addition, W.R.C.P. 422 made it clear that the joinder of claims and joint trials were matters entirely within the district court’s discretion. Prior to its revision, that rule stated:

(a) Consolidation. — When actions involving a common question of law or fact are pending before the court, it may order a joint hearing or trial of any or all the matters in issue in the actions; it may order all the actions consolidated; and it may make such orders concerning proceedings therein as may tend to avoid unnecessary costs or delay.
(b) Separate trials. — The court in furtherance of convenience or to avoid prejudice, may order a separate trial of any claim, cross-claim, counterclaim, or third-party claim, or of any separate issue or of any number of claims, cross-claims, counterclaims, third-party claims, or issues.

The rules were permissive and simply stated that the district court “may” order consolidation or separation of the claims, but the district court was not “required” to do either. That decision lay exclusively within the district court’s evaluation of what would be most convenient and what would avoid prejudice. W.R.C.P. 42 provided the district court with discretion, and no abuse of that discretion exists in this case.

While Ms. Moore is correct in arguing that similar properties were at stake in both proceedings, that fact alone does not require joinder. The properties involved in the two actions were not identical, even though they overlapped. Moore, 809 P.2d at 256-57. In the divorce action, the issue concerned the division and ownership of the marital property. The lien action had nothing to do with the question of ownership. Ms. Moore’s ownership was never disputed. The question in the lien action was whether Mr. Moore was entitled to recover for taking care of Ms. Moore’s livestock.

The judgment in the lien action does not affect Ms. Moore’s right to have an accounting made of the divorce decree property. We previously reviewed the property division made pursuant to the divorce decree and found that it was just and equitable. Id. Our remand of the case for an accounting in the divorce action does not undercut that determination.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
835 P.2d 1148, 1992 Wyo. LEXIS 97, 1992 WL 175904, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moore-v-moore-wyo-1992.