Opinion ID: 2790598
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Separate Guarantee

Text: Nor can we accept Homoly’s suggestion that written personal guarantees he and Robl Construction once executed at the request of a bank in connection with a construction loan indicate § 8 of the buy-sell agreement requires a separate “written consensual personal guarantee” before Homoly became personally liable. Neither the contract language nor the record supports Homoly’s proposed separate guarantee requirement. First, pursuant to § 8, Homoly expressly and unambiguously “agree[d] to personally guarantee any and all loans by any such lender to Company” “[i]f requested by the Company and any lender.” (Emphasis added). See Stauth v. Brown, 734 P.2d 1063, 1069 (Kan. 1987). Section 8 says nothing about a separate written guarantee. If Robl Construction and Homoly truly intended to require a separate guarantee as Homoly suggests, they could have easily written that requirement into § 8, just as they expressly required a promissory note in § 7. They did not. “‘Words cannot be read into the agreement which impart an intent wholly unexpressed when it was executed.’” Mears v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 667 P.2d 902, 905 (Kan. Ct. App. 1983) (quoting In re Estate of Johnson, 452 P.2d 286, 291 (Kan. 1969)). “[T]he more -13- logical conclusion is that the contract imposes no such obligation.” Boos v. Nat’l Fed’n of State High Sch. Assocs., 889 P.2d 797, 802 (Kan. Ct. App. 1995). Second, assuming we found § 8 ambiguous as to the parties’ intent regarding a separate guarantee, Homoly is still unable to establish he is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. “[I]f the language of a contract is ambiguous and the intent of the parties cannot be ascertained from undisputed extrinsic or parol evidence, summary . . . judgment is inappropriate.” Waste Connections of Kan., Inc. v. Ritchie Corp., 298 P.3d 250, 265 (Kan. 2013) (emphasis added); see also Nungesser v. Bryant, 153 P.3d 1277, 1288 (Kan. 2007) (“When the evidence pertaining to the existence of a contract or the content of its terms is conflicting or permits more than one inference, a question of fact is presented.”); First Nat’l Bank, 564 P.2d at 496 (“Whether the guaranty was limited by a concurrent agreement of the parties . . . was . . . an issue of fact which could not be resolved as a matter of law.”). Finally, even if we could consider extrinsic evidence, see Butts v. Lawrence, 919 P.2d 363, 367 (Kan. Ct. App. 1996) (explaining that, absent ambiguity, it is “error to consider . . . extrinsic evidence of the parties’ intent”), and resolve the alleged ambiguity in § 8, Homoly fails to adduce any competent evidence that the parties intended to include an unexpressed separate guarantee requirement in § 8. The fact the members once separately documented personal guarantees at the request of a third-party lender does not indubitably and forever establish the members’ intent to require a separate guarantee for every loan. Indeed, the record is completely devoid of any evidence regarding the members’ motive for executing the written guarantees on which Homoly relies—depriving those guarantees of evidentiary value. See, e.g., Canyon Creek Dev., LLC v. Fox, 263 P.3d 799, 801 (Kan. Ct. App. 2011) (recognizing courts must “view the evidence in the light more favoring the nonmoving party” and refusing to “speculate about the existence, motivating -14- influence, or possible consequence of any [personal] guaranties” because “there [we]re no facts whatsoever on th[e] issue” in the record). Homoly has failed to show he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law under the parties’ agreements.