Bedford v. Pacific Structural Welding Corp.

DOOLING, J.,

pro

tem.

This is an appeal from a judgment for plaintiff for $779.47, the balance found by the court to be due for services performed under a contract with defendant at the rate of $95 per eight-hour day. The plaintiff contracted to furnish the necessary equipment and with such equipment to transport the salvaged pieces of

[163]

steel from the wreck of the steamship “Coos Bay” in the Golden Gate in San Francisco to the roadway above the ship. After about three weeks defendant terminated the contract on the ground, among others, that plaintiff had not furnished the necessary equipment to do the work as contemplated by the contract.

The trial court found that the plaintiff furnished all necessary equipment, and the sole point on appeal is that this finding is not supported by the evidence. It is a commonplace of appellate procedure that every intendment is to be indulged by the appellate court in favor of the trial court’s findings, that only the evidence most favorable to the successful litigant is to be considered, that where divergent inferences reasonably may be drawn from the evidence that inference is to be indulged .which will support the trial court’s action, and that with all this in mind unless the court can say on appeal that the findings are wholly without substantial support in the evidence they cannot be disturbed. It is not sufficient that upon the same evidence the appellate court might have reached a different conclusion as triers of the facts. The burden is upon the appellant to demonstrate that as a reasonable man the trial judge could not reasonably have reached the conclusion that he did from the evidence before him.

This burden appellant seeks to sustain in this case in the following manner: The parties to the contract contemplated that the equipment would be capable of raising approximately sixty tons of cut steel per day, but during the last two days before the termination of the contract under the most favorable conditions plaintiff only raised about seventeen tons per day. This, argues appellant, demonstrates conclusively that the equipment was hopelessly inadequate to remove anything like the sixty tons per day contemplated by the contract. If under the evidence the trial court was bound to find, as claimed by appellant, that the seventeen tons per day raised during the last two days represented the maximum efficiency of the equipment furnished, then the finding attacked manifestly cannot stand.