Opinion ID: 4522401
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Duration of the Agreement and Release

Text: The parties’ primary dispute concerns the duration of Top Rank’s obligations under the Agreement and Release. Middendorf argues that Top Rank is required to pay it a fee anytime Top Rank promotes one of Crawford’s title defenses pursuant to a promotional rights agreement. Top Rank argues that it was only required to pay Middendorf a fee when Top Rank promoted one of Crawford’s title defenses pursuant to the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement. Both parties assert that the Agreement and Release is unambiguous, and neither party has offered extrinsic evidence to shed light on its meaning.2 See Ringle v. Bruton, 86 P.3d 1032, 1039 (Nev. 2004) (“When contract language is ambiguous and incomplete . . . extrinsic evidence may be admitted to determine the parties’ intent, explain ambiguities, and supply omissions.”). 2 Top Rank contends that, although neither party argued that the Agreement and Release was ambiguous, the district court implicitly found that it was ambiguous, and therefore should not have granted partial summary judgment to Middendorf. That argument is flatly contradicted by the district court’s statement that “the Court finds the relevant contractual language to be unambiguous.” -6- Top Rank’s first argument turns on the Agreement and Release’s plain language. Top Rank notes that paragraph five of the Agreement and Release only requires it to pay a fee for title defenses “promoted by Top Rank pursuant to the Promotional Rights Agreement.” (Emphasis added). And it asserts that this is an unambiguous reference to the Promotional Rights Agreement that Top Rank and Crawford entered that same day. We are not persuaded. As the district court explained, paragraph five of the Agreement and Release refers to the “Promotional Rights Agreement.” Paragraph four, in turn, globally defines “Promotional Rights Agreement” to mean “a promotional rights agreement.” Paragraph five thus effectively provides that Middendorf is entitled to a fee equal to eight percent of the purse for each title defense “promoted by Top Rank pursuant to a promotional rights agreement.”3 Top Rank alternatively argues that the phrase “a promotional rights agreement” plainly means “the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement.” It notes that paragraph four of the Agreement and Release uses the plural for “bout agreements, and other boxing-related agreements and understandings” but the singular for “a promotional rights agreement.” Top Rank argues that this is because the parties only intended to refer to a single agreement—the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement. This argument hinges on the use of the word “a” rather than the word “any.” We agree with the district court that, “absent any other language actually specifying the June 30, 2011 promotional rights agreement,” this is “a lot of weight for one word to carry.” Because the word “a” is often used to mean “any,” it cannot carry this weight. See Allstate Ins. Co. v. Foster, 693 F. Supp. 886, 889 (D. Nev. 1988) 3 For this same reason, we do not agree with Top Rank that the clause, “[f]or each Title Defense (for either the WBC, WBO, WBA, or IBF, and as defined in the Promotional Rights Agreement),” unambiguously refers to the definition of “Title Defense” in the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement. (Emphasis added). -7- (applying Nevada law) (“‘A’ or ‘an’ is an indefinite article often used in the sense of ‘any’ and applied to more than one individual object . . . .”). There is a good reason that the parties might have phrased “promotional rights agreement” in the singular but “bout agreements, and other boxing-related agreements and understandings” in the plural. As the district court explained, “a boxer and promoter only have one promotional rights agreement at a time.” But they typically enter into numerous “bout agreements, and other boxing-related agreements and understandings” over the course of their promotional rights agreement as they negotiate the individual terms of each fight. In light of this context and the ordinary usage of the word “a,” we do not agree that the phrase “a promotional rights agreement” plainly means “the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement.” Instead, we conclude that interpreting “a promotional rights agreement” to mean “the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement” would require us to add words to the Agreement and Release that the parties did not include. That is something we cannot do. See Royal Indem. Co., 413 P.2d at 502. On the other hand, the Agreement and Release’s plain language supports Middendorf’s interpretation. We do not need to modify the parties’ agreement to read the words “each Title Defense” and “a promotional rights agreement” to include each title defense promoted pursuant to the Exclusive Restated Promotional Rights Agreement. See id. We only need to read “a” to mean “any,” which is within its ordinary meaning. See Foster, 693 F. Supp. at 889. We are also concerned that Top Rank’s interpretation might entail an absurd result that would upset the parties’ expectations. See Reno Club v. Young Inv. Co., 182 P.2d 1011, 1017 (Nev. 1947) (“A contract should not be construed so as to lead to an absurd result.”). If the phrase “pursuant to the Promotional Rights Agreement” meant “pursuant to the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement,” then Middendorf would -8- only be entitled to a fee so long as the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement was in effect. We agree with the district court that the “logical consequence” of this would be that Top Rank could “obviate its duties under the Agreement and Release by entering into a renegotiated promotional rights agreement with Crawford at literally any time.” Top Rank continued to pay Middendorf a fee for each of Crawford’s title defenses until July 30, 2016, when the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement would have expired. But the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement did not expire. It was “supersede[d] and replace[d]” by a new promotional rights agreement on September 16, 2014. Top Rank has struggled to explain why, under its view of the contract, Middendorf was entitled to any payments after that date. Before the district court, it argued that its payments after September 16, 2014, were “voluntary.” On appeal, it argues that the duration of the Agreement and Release was fixed by the parties’ intent at the time of contracting and, at the time of contracting, the parties intended the Agreement and Release to extend until July 30, 2016. Top Rank thus asserts that, even if the Agreement and Release was expressly limited to title defenses promoted “pursuant to the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement,” Middendorf would be entitled to a fee for title defenses promoted pursuant to different promotional rights agreements—including the Exclusive Restated Promotional Rights Agreement—until July 30, 2016. But that construction would require us to go well beyond the language of the Agreement and Release to discern its meaning. And we do not think that Top Rank would have raised it for the first time on appeal if it was what the parties intended at the time of contracting. Top Rank’s next argument is that the Agreement and Release incorporates the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement such that the two agreements, signed by different parties on the same day, in effect constitute a single contract. Nevada courts have held that separate instruments constitute a single contract when “(1) they are contemporaneously executed, (2) they concern the same subject matter, and (3) one -9- of the instruments refers to the other.” Whitemaine v. Aniskovich, 183 P.3d 137, 141 (Nev. 2008). One contract may also be made part of another “by annexation.” Lincoln Welding Works, Inc. v. Ramirez, 647 P.2d 381, 383 (Nev. 1982). But here, neither agreement explicitly refers to the other, and the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement is not annexed to the Agreement and Release. We cannot say that these separate agreements between different parties constitute a single agreement simply because they were enacted on the same day and concern a similar subject matter. See Whitemaine, 183 P.3d at 141 (providing three requirements). Finally, Top Rank asserts that if the Agreement and Release is not limited to the term of the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement, there was no meeting of the minds as to the duration of the Agreement and Release, and we may cure the omission by imposing a term that is “reasonable in the circumstances.” See Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 204 (Am. Law Inst. 1981). Top Rank suggests that limiting the Agreement and Release to the duration of the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement would be reasonable in the circumstances. Top Rank made a similar, but not identical, argument to the district court. It argued that if the Agreement and Release was not limited to the duration of the 2011 Promotional Rights Agreement, it would create a perpetual obligation in violation of Nevada public policy. The district court rejected that argument, concluding that Top Rank’s obligation is not perpetual because it extends only so long as Top Rank continues to promote Crawford and Crawford continues to defend his boxing titles. See Don King Promotions, Inc. v. Douglas, 742 F. Supp. 741, 763 (S.D.N.Y. 1990) (a promotional rights agreement that covered “the entire period Douglas is world champion and a period of two years following the date on which Douglas thereafter ceases, for any reason, to be so recognized as world champion” was not a perpetual obligation (cleaned up)). We agree with the district court’s analysis. And we conclude that, just as the duration of the agreement is not perpetual, it is also not omitted from the parties’ agreement. The Agreement and Release contemplates that -10- Middendorf is entitled to a fee so long as Top Rank promotes Crawford’s title defenses pursuant to a promotional rights agreement. We cannot substitute a different term that Top Rank regards as more reasonable for the term that the parties agreed to. See Royal Indem. Co., 413 P.2d at 502.