Ryan v. Acuff

The only issues on this appeal involve evidentiary rulings made by the trial judge in a suit for breach of an oral agreement to form a joint venture to develop land.

Around the first part of 1980, the plaintiff/appellant Clyde Ryan, a building contractor, and the defendant/appellee John Acuff, began discussions about the possibility of forming a joint venture to develop parcels of land owned by the parties. Acuff owned approximately seventy-seven acres and Ryan approximately four acres of land. The property was contiguous and had no mortgages or other encumbrances.

Ryan testified that he had…