Opinion ID: 2717726
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: T-Mobile’s Contentions

Text: As noted above, the District Court found that section 5.8 of the Agreement was unenforceable and severed the provision. As an initial matter, we note that T-Mobile does not appeal the District Court’s finding that section 5.8 was 13 ambiguous and, therefore, unenforceable.6 Rather, T-Mobile appeals only the District Court’s decision to sever section 5.8 from the Agreement and to enforce the remainder of the Agreement. T-Mobile argues that the Court erred by severing section 5.8 because it failed to analyze whether section 5.8 was essential to the Agreement as a whole, as required by Delaware law. Specifically, T-Mobile argues that Delaware law required the District Court to consider whether severance was consistent with the intention of the contracting parties. It claims that the Court did not analyze the parties’ intent on whether they would have signed the Agreement without the severability provision, and instead relies solely on the fact that the Agreement included a severability clause. T-Mobile also contends that the presence of the clause in the Agreement may be indicative, but is not conclusive, of the parties’ intent with respect to severability. As a result, it argues that the record supports a finding by this Court of reversible error because the record shows that the parties would not have 6 The District Court applied the correct legal principles in reaching its determination that the provision was ambiguous. After determining that the provision was ambiguous on its face, the Court then considered parol evidence to try to ascertain the parties’ intentions. This approach is approved by the Supreme Court of Delaware. See GMG Capital Invs., LLC v. Athenian Venture Partners, I, L.P., 36 A.3d 776 (Del. 2012) (“Where a contract is ambiguous, the interpreting court must look beyond the language of the contract to ascertain the parties’ intentions.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). The District Court, acting as factfinder, considered the relevant parol evidence, but concluded that the extrinsic evidence did not resolve the ambiguity. 14 entered the Agreement without an enforceable telematics provision. Additionally, T-Mobile points to the second half of the severability provision, which states that, where any provision of section 11 is severed, it “shall be replace[d]” with a provision that “come closest to the purpose and intent of this Agreement.” J.A. 893. By not replacing the severed provision with a provision that addressed the same purpose and intent of the severed clause, T-Mobile posits that the District Court erred. T-Mobile further contends that the Court erred by finding that the force majeure provision of the contract excused VICI’s breach by failing to race in several races in 2009 following a crash that damaged VICI’s racecar. T- Mobile claims that VICI only relied upon its own economic limitations when insisting that it could not race another car, and also that the District Court erred by not inferring a foreseeability requirement into the force majeure provision. In its pretrial statement, T-Mobile at no time mentioned foreseeability as a required element for implementation of the force majeure clause on the contract. See id. 78.