Opinion ID: 1190550
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: over-all contract

Text: [3] There seems to have been a tendency on the parts of all parties involved herein to be less than precise in the use of the terms contract and agreement. But the two terms are not used interchangeably. Restatement, Contracts §§ 1 and 3 (1932), are helpful in this respect: § 1. A contract is a promise or a set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes as a duty. § 3. An agreement is a manifestation of mutual assent by two or more persons to one another. Comment: a. Agreement has a wider meaning than contract, bargain or promise. The word contains no implication that legal consequences are or are not produced. (Italics ours.) By virtue of the contentions of the plaintiffs in the pretrial order and otherwise, where they refer to a tri-party agreement, it seems to us that they are asserting the existence of some kind of an over-all legal relationship. But, technically speaking, legal consequences would arise or result only from an over-all contract. Unfortunately, the court's instructions to the jury do not clearly segregate and emphasize an over-all contract as one possible theory of recovery. In fact, there is an overlapping or generality in the instructions, without clarifying direction from the court, as to the plaintiffs' theory of an over-all contract and his allegations of conspiracy. See, e.g., the last paragraph of instruction No. 8: If you find an overall or a primary contract in which each of the defendants took a part, and if you find that two or more defendants conspired to defeat the overall contract or any part in which a defendant was obligated, then you may find a conspiracy by such defendants regardless of which portion of the contract was planned to be defeated. It is our conclusion that it was clearly error to allow the jury to consider the possible existence of an over-all contract. There was certainly no written document which purported to effectuate such a contractual relationship by setting out the bargained-for exchange of promises between all the parties. Furthermore, any oral contract purporting to cover every aspect of this proposed transaction would have encountered insurmountable statute-of-fraud problems. The alleged existence and possibility of the jury finding a valid over-all contract permeates this entire controversy. We have reviewed the entire record and find no evidence that would justify a conclusion that any or all of the parties manifested an intention to enter into an over-all legal relationship. While it is true that getting a transfer dealership for Corbit from Case depended upon the availability of an adequate warehousing facility, and in turn, the only desirable real estate Corbit had been able to locate was that of Northern Pacific Railway, and in turn, the search for capital to construct the warehouse had led him to Whitworth College, the tumbling domino sequence which resulted from Corbit's inability to put the transactions together does not indicate that the events or proposed legal obligations were contractually interrelated. Doubtless, Corbit would have welcomed securing an over-all contract which legally would have bound or obligated all of the parties necessary to consummate the entire transaction. But several matters remained in the negotiation stage, and there simply is no evidence indicating and supporting the existence of an over-all contract with clearly enforceable obligations between all of the parties, plaintiff and defendant. In view of our determination hereinafter that the plaintiffs have no possible theory of recovery against either Northern Pacific Railway Co. or Whitworth College, Inc., the trial court's error in instructing the jury as to the possibility of finding an over-all contract will not necessitate a new trial as to those two parties. However, the overlapping or lack of clarity in the instructions is error which is persuasive for a new trial as to J.I. Case Company.