David Parks and Debra Lynn Parks v. Michael R. Vierling and Karen E. Vierling

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ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION  DIVISION III  CA 05­896  MARCH 15, 2006  DAVID PARKS and DEBRA LYNN  PARKS  APPELLANTS  APPEAL FROM THE BAXTER  COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT  [NO. CV­2002­170­4]  V. HONORABLE GORDON WEBB,  JUDGE  MICHAEL R. VIERLING and KAREN  E. VIERLING  APPELLEES  AFFIRMED  JOHN B. ROBBINS, Judge  This is an appeal from a judgment rendered in Baxter County Circuit Court against  1  appellants David and Debra Lynn Parks  in a lawsuit for breach of a construction contract  filed by appellees Michael and Karen Vierling.  Appellant is in the business of building and  selling houses.  Appellees purchased a house built by appellant in July 1999, closing on the  house when it was near completion.  In February 2000 and the following months, the crawl  space of the house was repeatedly infiltrated with water upon each heavy rain.  Despite  appellant’s initial attempts to fix the water problem, it persisted, and appellant abandoned  those efforts by fall 2000.  Appellees filed suit in May 2002, and appellant defended on the  ground that any water problem was due to alterations on the property done by appellees.  After a two­day bench trial, the trial judge took the case under advisement, ultimately finding  that  appellees  had  proven  by  a  preponderance  of  the  evidence  that  appellant  failed  to  properly  provide  for  adequate  drainage  during  construction  of  the  house;  that  appellant 1  For ease of reference, we will refer herein only to David Parks as the primary  appellant.  Mr. Parks was the actual builder/contractor on this construction project and  the person with whom appellees communicated.  breached the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose; that  appellant was responsible for resulting damages that were $10,450 in costs to repair the  drainage  problem;  and  that  appellant  was  responsible  for  appellees’  attorney  fees  in  the  amount of $11,470.36 plus court costs.  The judgment was entered on February 4, 2005, and  a  timely  notice  of  appeal  followed.    Appellant  appeals  arguing  that  (1)  the  finding  that  appellant was responsible for the drainage problem is not supported by a preponderance of  the evidence, and (2) the award of the full requested attorney fee constitutes an abuse of  discretion.  We affirm.  We initially set forth the relevant testimony and evidence presented in this bench trial.  The parties stipulated that appellant was a builder and the vendor of this home, which was  sold  to  the  first  occupants,  appellees.  They  further  stipulated  that  the  defects  became  apparent within the first year of ownership.  Appellee Michael Vierling testified that in late 1999 after moving into the house, he  hired Mr. Dickerson to pour concrete in a small triangular area, covering an area of dirt  abutting the house to create a patio.  This area was bordered by the sidewalk leading to the  front door.  By the early months of 2000, appellee noticed a substantial amount of water in  the crawl space underneath the house, so he called appellant.  Appellant came to the house  and knocked out a hole low in the foundation, placing a small drain pipe into the hole.  This  did not solve the problem.  About a month later, appellant came out and installed a curtain  drain along the east side of the house, which purportedly emptied into a gravel pit at the end.  A few weeks after that, appellant came back to replace the top soil over the drain and lay  seed and straw atop the soil.  The new trench did not solve the problem, because with each  rain more water entered the underneath crawl space.  The next time appellant came out to  the house, he brought a civil engineer, Mr. Huett, with him.  Mr. Huett believed that a buried ­2­  curtain  drain  was  useless  unless  it  exited  to  “daylight.”    Mr.  Huett  also  suggested  that  appellant grade the land away from the house to divert run­off.  In June 2000, appellant said  he “fixed” a down­spout on the house by placing the down­spout into a PVC pipe already  placed underneath the sidewalk.  In July 2000, appellant re­opened the curtain drain and  refilled it, and he attempted to grade the dirt on the property.  None of these actions stopped  the crawlspace from filling with water upon each rain.  With  that,  appellant  contacted  Mr.  Huett  to  file  a  formal  engineering  report.  Mr. Huett recommended a curtain drain to be installed along the north side, or front, of the  house and to be attached to the east­side drain.  Mr. Huett also recommended an additional  four­foot extension of the concrete along the garage.  Appellant installed a north­sided drain  but  did  no  more.  Appellant  said  he  stopped  working  on  this  problem  from  and  after  September 2000.  Appellant had spent approximately $4700 toward the drainage problem.  The flooding continued, and it appeared to appellee that the water came from the back  of the garage.  Appellee said he spent over $700 in rental equipment to repeatedly extract the  water and dry the crawl space.  Because the crawl space was “in a constant state of wet”  growing moss, fungus, mushrooms, and harboring frogs, appellee contacted another engineer,  Mr. Willett, to fix the problem.  Multiple pictures of the crawlspace, showing water marks  on the foundation piers and the like, were introduced into evidence.  In October 2000, Mr. Willett installed a garage apron and placed a cap on it, which  appellant had refused to install, and also completed grading of the lot.  This work cost $2050.  In the spring of 2001, Mr. Willett installed a new curtain drain along the east side of the  house, and replaced the soil and grass seed, which cost $1400. Drainage problems persisted,  so Mr. Willett came back in 2002 to install footing and a foundation across the front of the  garage,  which  had  never  been  done  in  the  construction  of  the  house.  Mr.  Willett  also ­3­  wrapped  the  whole  house  with  a  curtain  drain  to  ensure  that  there  would  be  no  more  water problems.  Appellees paid Mr. Willett $7000 for this additional work.  The total of  Mr. Willett’s fees was $10,450.  Mr. Huett testified that he understood that the garage and driveway sat upon shot rock,  which rock is approximately six inches in diameter.  Mr. Huett agreed that water readily  flowed through shot rock and that the lot itself was sloped such that water flowed toward the  house.  Mr. Huett faulted the masonry work in the foundation, and he said that the water was  primarily coming from under the garage into the crawl space.  Mr. Huett said that the lack  of footing or a foundation wall was not good practice; this left no protection.  Mr. Huett  described appellant’s attempts at grading the lot to be “half­hearted.”  He said that appellant  did not install  the curtain drains as he had told him to.  Mr. Huett agreed that appellant  brought another engineer to trial to testify on his behalf, but Mr. Huett stated that appellant’s  expert  did  not  have  the  opportunity  to  be  out  at  the  house  when  the  water  was  actually  accumulating.  Mr. Huett’s recommendations and sketches were entered into evidence.  Mr. Willett testified that in his thirty­two­year career as a general contractor, he had  fixed  thirty­five  to  forty  drainage  problems.    Mr.  Willett  did  not  agree  that  the  more  economical drains were the best solution.  He thought that the best attack was directly at  the  source.  Nonetheless,  he  repaired  the  curtain  drains.    When  this  did  not  solve  the  problem, he installed proper footing and a foundation, filling in all the piers under the house.  Mr. Willett observed the presence of shot rock throughout the underneath of the garage area.  He said the shot rock was several inches in diameter.  He said he found no evidence that the  builder took any precautions to protect this house from water, where it sat in a natural drain.  He characterized it as “incomplete workmanship” done to “save a few bucks.”  Mr. Willett  thought that the patio concrete was poured to a tight fit, and he believed that Mr. Dickerson ­4­  did good work.  He also said that he saw no evidence that water came down through a vent  in the side of the house.  Appellant testified that he had built as a general contractor for about fifteen years,  averaging ten homes a year.  He agreed he put shot rock underneath the garage and packed  it down with a dozer, but he said he “knocked down” the shot rock to one­and­three­quarter  inch size so it would pack.  He agreed that he responded to appellees’ complaints in May  2000, first creating a hole and installing a pipe in the foundation and later installing the  curtain drain.  After going out to the house and working on the problem five or six times,  appellant agreed he stopped his efforts.  Appellant believed that the triangular patio concrete  tilted  toward  the  house  sending  water  underneath  the  house;  that  someone  damaged  the  down­spout in the process of installing the patio, which he later repaired; and that appellees  had added dirt to the property, sloping the run­off toward the house.  Because of these three  things, appellant faulted appellees for the persistent water problem.  However, appellant  agreed upon cross examination that “it’s not good workmanship for a house’s crawl space  to fill up with water.”  He also agreed that after he fixed the down­spout, the water problem  persisted. Appellant’s brother Everett Parks testified that he also believed that the concrete patio  sloped toward the house because he placed a level onto the patio.  He said that this triangle  space of dirt had been left open for a flower bed.  Everett confirmed that when they finished  the house in July 1999, the down­spout was draining into the drain line under the sidewalk,  but the next spring, the down­spout was pouring onto the concrete.  Appellant called a civil engineer, Victor Sanchez, to the stand. Mr. Sanchez was hired  in late 2002 or early 2003 to inspect the premises.  He opined that most of the water was  coming in through a vent or through the area adjacent to the concrete patio, which he thought ­5­  sloped toward the house.  Mr. Sanchez based that opinion on his viewing of the high water  marks on the piers under the house.  He was unaware of the material used under the concrete  garage and driveway, and he agreed that if aggregate were there, water could easily drain into  the crawl space.  Mr. Sanchez agreed that it was poor design not to have a footing underneath  the garage.  Mr. Dickerson testified that he poured the concrete patio, leveling it away from the  house.  He confirmed this by using a level prior to pouring the concrete, and then testing the  flow  of  water  after  it  was  poured  by  running  water  from  a  hose  atop  the  patio.    Mr.  Dickerson said that the sidewalk tilted toward the house, based upon him setting a level on  it.  Each  attorney  presented  a  closing argument.    The  trial  court  took  the  case  under  advisement.  After trial, appellees submitted a motion for attorney’s fees in the amount of  $11,470.36, attaching the entirety of their attorney’s billing statements.  Appellant resisted  the award of attorney fees, arguing that appellees were not yet the prevailing party, and in  any event, the requested fee was excessive in relation to the damages sought.  In January  2005, the trial judge rendered his decision by letter opinion finding in favor of appellees and  against appellant.  The burden of proof in a bench trial is by a preponderance of the evidence.  Chavers  v. Epsco, Inc., 352 Ark. 65, 98 S.W.3d 421 (2003).  On appeal, we reverse findings of fact  by  the  trial  court  only  upon  a  determination  that  the  trial  court’s  findings  are  clearly  erroneous or clearly against the preponderance of the evidence.  Such findings are clearly  erroneous when, although there is some evidence to support them, the appellate court is left  with  a  distinct  and  firm  conviction  that  a  mistake  was  committed.  See  Bendinger  v.  Marshalltown Trowell Co., 338 Ark. 410, 994 S.W.2d 468 (1999).  However, resolution of ­6­  conflicts in the evidence and the determination of credibility is left to the fact finder, not the  appellate  court.  See  Raiborn  v.  Raiborn,  254  Ark.  711,  495  S.W.2d  858  (1973).    This  standard of review applies to appellant’s first argument on appeal.  Appellant contends that  his witnesses were more credible regarding whether it was appellant’s or appellees’ fault that  a drainage problem existed.  We cannot agree with appellant.  The pertinent findings on this issue were set out in the letter opinion.  The judge  recalled that this was a full two­day bench trial and that he took down twenty­five pages of  notes while hearing the case.  The judge also recited that he studied each side’s trial briefs,  the more than fifty exhibits introduced at trial, and took approximately three days to research  and consider the issues.  He rendered findings that he was “substantially more convinced by  the testimony and evidence presented by the Plaintiffs [appellees] as to the cause of the  problem;”  that  the  builder  should  have  recognized  and  identified  the  natural  drainage  problem on this parcel of land and built the home with appropriate man­made drainage to  compensate;  that  despite  appellant’s  initial  good­faith  efforts  to  fix  the  problem  with  installation of a curtain drain among other measures, those efforts were unsuccessful; and  that appellant was responsible for the costs appellees incurred to stop the drainage problem  once and for all.  Appellant argues on appeal that these findings are clearly against the preponderance  of the evidence.  Appellant asserts that the facts in this case “are quite complicated” and that  because of “the totality and enormity of this case and conflicting testimony,” appellees failed  to meet their burden of proof on the cause of the drainage problem.  We disagree.  To the  extent that there were conflicts in the testimony, and there were many, this was an issue for  the trial court to resolve, not our court.  We are not at liberty to pick and choose the more  compelling  witnesses,  nor  is  the  sheer  number  of  witnesses  or  pieces  of  evidence  the ­7­  deciding factor.  Appellees presented ample evidence that, if believed, supports the trial  court’s findings by a preponderance of the evidence.  We affirm this point on appeal.  The second issue on appeal concerns the award of attorney  fees to the prevailing  party.  All parties agree that there is statutory authority in Ark. Code Ann.  §  16­22­308  (Supp. 2005) to award such fees.  The gravamen of appellant’s argument is that it was an  abuse of discretion to award fees of $11,470.36 when the damage award was only $10,450.  Appellant states in his brief on this issue that “this case did not involve a complex or novel  subject matter.”  Appellant does not contest the hourly rate charged or whether all of the  billing was related to this particular case.  We disagree that appellant has demonstrated an  abuse of discretion in this instance.  A trial court is not required to award attorney fees, and because of the trial judge’s  intimate acquaintance with the trial proceedings and the quality of service rendered by the  prevailing party’s counsel, appellate courts generally recognize the superior perspective of  the trial judge in determining whether to award such fees.  See Jones v. Abraham, 341 Ark.  66,  15  S.W.3d  310  (2000).  Appellant  sets  forth  the  relevant  factors  to  consider  when  determining an award of attorney’s fees.  See, e.g., Phelps v. U.S. Credit Life Ins. Co., 340  Ark. 439, 10 S.W.3d 854 (2000).  The amount of the fee is a discretionary decision.  See  Nelson v. River Valley Bank & Trust, 334 Ark. 172, 971 S.W.2d 777 (1998).  We will not  disturb the trial judge’s decision absent an abuse of discretion.  See Chrisco v. Sun Indus.,  Inc., 304 Ark. 227, 800 S.W.2d 717 (1990).  The trial court awarded the full amount  sought, which was supported by detailed  billing statements from June 2000 through the trial conducted in July 2004.  The trial judge  noted in his letter opinion that both attorneys were well prepared and very capable.  The trial  judge determined that appellees’ attorney’s billing was well documented, that the billing was ­8­  reasonable in light of the great deal of time and effort expended for this case, and that the  fees would be granted pursuant to appellees having prevailed on their contract­based suit.  We are hard pressed to hold that the trial court’s decision constitutes an abuse of discretion,  particularly where in point one of appellant’s brief, he states how complicated this case was.  We affirm the discretionary decision to award this attorney fee.  See Burns v. Burns, 312  Ark. 61, 847 S.W.2d 23 (1993).  We affirm.  PITTMAN, C.J., and BAKER, J., agree. ­9­ 

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