Wiles v. Hammer

CURTIS, J.

This action is for the recovery of a money judgment against the defendant. The complaint contains three causes of action. The first, upon a contract for the drilling of a well; the second, for the value of certain well-casing, and the third, for services performed in the development work on wells belonging to the defendant. The answer

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consists of a denial of the allegations of the complaint and affirmative matter in the nature of an affirmative defense to each of the three causes of action set out in the complaint. Defendant also filed a cross-complaint, but no point seems to be made by appellant regarding any issue involved in the latter pleading. The court found in favor of plaintiff upon all three causes of action set forth in said complaint and awarded judgment in his favor for the amount prayed for, less the amount of a counterclaim set up by defendant in his answer. The counterclaim was no part of, and was entirely independent of, the matters set forth in the affirmative defenses of the answer.

In the findings of fact filed, the court, after finding in favor of plaintiff upon the allegations of the complaint, found also upon the issues made by defendant’s affirmative defenses. Upon these issues it is apparent that the court intended to find in plaintiff’s favor, but many of the findings upon this branch of the case were prepared by using the statement, “It is not true,” and following such statement with a copy of the "allegations of the affirmative defense, with the result that the findings thus prepared and signed by the court contained many contradictory and inconsistent statements. Accordingly we find that ■ in many instances where it was evidently the intention of the court to find in favor of the plaintiff, on account of the erroneous method employed in drafting the findings, the very opposite result was obtained. Take, for instance, the findings upon the issues presented by plaintiff’s second cause of action. The plaintiff alleged and the court found as true that the plaintiff furnished and delivered to defendant, at defendant’s special instance and request, well-casing of the reasonable value of $117.58, no part of which had been paid. In addition to his denial of these allegations of the complaint, the defendant alleged in substance that all well-casing furnished by plaintiff was furnished at plaintiff’s own cost and expense, by reason of his careless, negligent, and unskillful construction of two other wells which he had drilled for the defendant, and by reason of the fact that plaintiff had wasted and lost a large quantity of casing belonging to defendant in the worthless construction of these other wells, and that any and all casing furnished by plaintiff was furnished under an agreement on the part of plaintiff to drill