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March 18, 2026 Get Citation Alerts Download PDF Add Note

Robert Wells v. Timothy Randall

Court of Appeals of Arkansas

• Citations: 2026 Ark. App. 187

• Docket Number: Unknown

• Opinion

• Authorities (4)

• Cited By (0)

• Summaries (0)

• Similar Cases (8.6K)

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Combined Opinion

Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 187
ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISIONS IV, I & II
No. CV-24-692

ROBERT WELLS Opinion Delivered March 18, 2026
APPELLANT
APPEAL FROM THE BOONE
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
V. [NO. 05CV-22-180]

TIMOTHY RANDALL HONORABLE ANDREW S. BAILEY,
APPELLEE JUDGE

AFFIRMED

BRANDON J. HARRISON, Judge

Jon Krakauer’s account of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster quotes a guide who had

tried to lead climbers to camp at night in whiteout conditions. “I walked over this little

rise, and it felt like I was standing on the edge of the earth. I could sense a huge void just

beyond.” 1 He was right. The group “had unwittingly strayed to the easternmost edge” of

Everest’s South Col, “right at the lip of the 7,000-foot Kangshung Face.” 2 The lesson is, if

you don’t know where your steps will land, keep your feet on the ground. That sage advice

applies to certain appeals, too. This is one of them.

Robert Wells appeals after a bench trial in a replevin case. The circuit court awarded

Timothy Randall a judgment against him for $14,800, the value of a wheel-alignment

1
Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster ch. 16
(1997).
2
Id.
machine Randall had sued to recover. 3 By trial, Wells could not return it. Four days earlier,

a tornado had destroyed the storage unit where he kept the machine.

To recover in replevin, the plaintiff must establish “a general or special property

interest in a thing taken or detained” and that “right of possession or ownership must be

one by a title recognized at law,” not equity alone. Anderson v. Sharp Cnty., 295 Ark. 366,

369–70, 749 S.W.2d 306, 308 (1988). The parties submitted the case to the circuit court

for decision on the proof; it consisted mostly of their testimony, which directly conflicted

at times. No one argued about the legal significance of any fact, disputed or otherwise. 4

Randall was pro se. The circuit court did not explain why it made this award or cite cases

in support; and the parties never asked it to.

On appeal, Wells points to his testimony and cases like Anderson and asks us to

conclude that the damages award is unsupported because he, Wells, had legal title to the

machine. Randall points to his own testimony and asks us to affirm because legal title was

his. On day one of the dispute, the machine belonged to neither man. Determining who

acquired what rights in it afterward on this record—or even what transaction or

circumstance conferred those rights—would involve the law of contracts, auctions,

bailments, debtor-creditor relations, agency, and joint enterprise, and perhaps more. And

just as the parties did in circuit court, they have left all the analysis to us.

3
That amount reflected a setoff to Wells of $2,200 from a $17,000 valuation.
4
In fact, the record includes no argument on any issue at any time.

2
No thanks. We decline to step off into the void and argue the title issue de novo for

one side or the other. Our dissenting colleagues choose otherwise; that is their prerogative.

But our opinions are precedent for what we decide. Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 5-2(c). A merits

decision in this case could affect title to property throughout Arkansas. 5 The circuit court

handled the parties’ dispute in as fulsome a manner as they permitted. Someone had to win.

Randall did. To reverse that judgment, Wells must demonstrate reversible error here. 6 He

has not done so.

Affirmed.

KLAPPENBACH, C.J., and VIRDEN, GLADWIN, BARRETT, and MURPHY, JJ., agree.

ABRAMSON, TUCKER, and THYER, JJ., dissent.

CASEY R. TUCKER, Judge, dissenting. The majority’s observation––that “the

circuit court did not explain why it made [the] award”––is incorrect. The circuit court

made a clear finding here—that the oral agreement between Wells and Randall entitled

Randall to a judgment of replevin. To be sure, the court did not cite any cases. It also did

not explain its finding or cite evidence in support of it. In the days before we applied this

our new and bold “someone had to win” standard of review, we would call this reversible

error. We still should.

Wells sued no one. Wells had no burden of proof. Yet, that is what the majority

undoubtedly implies by affirming the circuit court’s finding that Randall proved by a

5
For that reason, we decline to recite the testimony. It could only mislead a reader
to think we have decided where title lay on those facts.
6
E.g., City of Greenbrier v. Roberts, 354 Ark. 591, 127 S.W.3d 454 (2003) (summarily
affirming for failure to demonstrate reversible error).

3
preponderance of the evidence that he proved his case for replevin. What the majority chose

to ignore is the fact that the circuit court did indeed make findings and conclusions of law

when it issued an order that stated:

1. . . . The Court finds that [Wells] provided $2,200 in cash for [Randall] to purchase the contents of the storage unit and the agreement was that [Wells] would recoup his investment by choosing items of value from the contents.

....

1. Considering the parties’ agreement and the evidence presented at trial that the property withheld from [Randall] had been destroyed, the Court awards [Randall] judgment in the amount of $14,800 against [Wells]. This amount is based on the value of the alignment machine with credit to [Wells] for the purchase price he advanced for the purchase of the storage unit contents.

At the outset of this case, the circuit court correctly advised Randall that “[t]his is a

replevin action so how this will go is since you have the burden of proof you’ll go first and

you will tell me what you want me to know.” Before an order of delivery or an award of

damages may be issued, the existence of a right of possession in the petitioner must be

established by proof. Ark. Code Ann. § 18-60-804 (d) (Repl. 2015). It is the plaintiff’s

burden to sufficiently demonstrate ownership and entitlement to possession of property in

dispute. Williams v. Harrell, 226 Ark. 115, 288 S.W.2d 321 (1956).

Randall had the burden of proving his ownership and entitlement to possession. He

claimed and testified that he owned the wheel alignment machine because he paid for it

with $2,200 of his own money. 1 Wells offered conflicting testimony that he gave Randall

1
The purchase price of $2,200 was for the contents of the storage unit Randall bid
on through an online auction, but the only asset we discuss is the wheel alignment machine
because it was the only item addressed by the circuit court’s ruling.

4
$3,000 to complete the purchase of the wheel alignment machine and, for that reason,

considered himself the owner of the property. The court believed Wells—finding that he

had given Randall the money. After rejecting Randall’s only claim to ownership, the circuit

court should have stopped there and awarded judgment in favor of Wells.

Instead, the court went too far and awarded Randall a monetary judgment on the

basis of Randall’s allegation that he and Wells had an oral agreement, which is not supported

by the evidence. 2 The circuit court’s finding that Wells paid for the contents of the storage

unit guts all rights of ownership or possession claimed by Randall.

By accepting Wells’s testimony that he provided the money and thereby rejecting

Randall’s claim that he paid for the item, there was no basis for the court to find that Randall

had an ownership interest in the item.

The majority states that “someone had to win,” but we certainly cannot reward a

party when he fails to meet his burden because “someone had to win.” Since when did our

standard of review affirming a circuit court’s order become because “someone had to win”?

When the burden rests on the complaining party—Randall—and he failed to meet the

burden—we should reverse and dismiss. 3 The circuit court clearly erred in its ruling.

CINDY GRACE THYER, Judge, dissenting. This case does not require us to step

in and make a de novo determination of which man, Wells or Randall, owned the wheel-

2
Randall took the money he obtained from Wells and used Wells’s company vehicle
to pick up the items in the storage unit. Randall testified he and Wells discussed that Wells
would have the first right to purchase the items. But Wells testified that he considered the
money he gave for the items to be sufficient payment for any items in the unit.
3
The majority said it best in footnote 3: “In fact, the record includes no argument
on any issue at any time.”

5
alignment machine. The circuit court already made factual findings and awarded replevin

to Randall. Wells challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting those findings. All

we must do now is apply our time-worn “clearly erroneous” standard of review to

determine whether the evidence admitted during the bench trial supports the circuit court’s

decision. It does not; and simply saying so would not break any new ground or create ill-

advised precedent.

Randall sued for replevin, claiming that he paid for property in an abandoned storage

unit, including the wheel-alignment machine, with cash that he withdrew from his bank

account. He testified that Wells, his employer at an auto-repair shop, lent him a delivery

truck to drive to Conway and retrieve the items. Randall testified that in exchange for the

use of his truck, Wells wanted the first chance to buy some of the items from Randall. In

contrast, Wells testified that he gave Randall the money to buy the property in the storage

unit. Randall’s offer to sell him the items upon his return from Conway “struck [Wells]

wrong” because Wells already considered himself the owner of the property. He told

Randall that he was not obligated to pay any more money. Wells later fired Randall and

kept the items from the abandoned storage unit, causing Randall to petition the circuit court

for delivery of the items. All the property was later destroyed in a tornado.

After considering the conflicting testimony, the circuit court found that Wells

“provided [the] cash for [Randall] to purchase the contents of the storage unit and the

agreement was that [Wells] would recoup his investment by choosing items of value from

its contents.” The court ruled that

[c]onsidering the parties’ agreement and the evidence presented at trial that the
property withheld from [Randall] has been destroyed, the Court awards [Randall]

6
judgment in the amount of $14,800 against defendant [Wells]. This amount is based
on the value of the alignment machine with credit to [Wells] for the purchase price
he advanced for the purchase of the storage unit contents.

On appeal, Wells challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the circuit

court’s finding that Randall had a possessory interest in the wheel-alignment machine based

on an alleged oral agreement. If we apply our clearly erroneous standard of review, we must

agree.

It bears emphasizing that Randall had the burden of proving his immediate right to

possess the property, see Ark. Code Ann. § 18-60-820 (a) (Repl. 2015), and he never

claimed—or offered any proof—that his possessory interest in the items from the storage

unit was granted to him in an oral agreement with Wells. Rather, he simply claimed that

he owned the property because he paid for it.

The circuit court’s judgment awards the value of the alignment machine to Randall

despite rejecting his only claim to ownership, choosing instead to credit Wells’s testimony

that he, not Randall, supplied the money to purchase the items in the storage unit. Rather

than stopping there, the circuit court went on to find that Randall still had a possessory

interest based on Wells’s version of their alleged oral agreement in which he “would recoup

his investment by choosing items of value from the contents.” Neither the circuit court nor

the record set forth the terms of any agreement that grants Randall a possessory interest in

the property.

“A finding is clearly erroneous when, although there is evidence to support it, the

reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with a definite and firm conviction that a

mistake has been made.” Edwards v. Cairns, 2025 Ark. App. 111, at 3, 708 S.W.3d 81, 83.

7
Here, there is no evidence to support the circuit court’s finding of an oral agreement

granting Randall a possessory interest in personal property that the court found had been

paid for by Wells. For that reason, I would reverse and dismiss.

ABRAMSON, J., joins in this dissent.

Phillip A. Moon Law Office, by: Phillip A. Moon, for appellant.

Davis Law Firm, by: Steven B. Davis, for appellee.

8