Opinion ID: 464998
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: All Moneys Advanced

Text: 28 The 1972 Agreement provides that Abbey and Barnes agreed to pay Northwest Sports 44.44% of all moneys advanced by Northwest to Totems or paid by Northwest on behalf of Totems.... The trial judge ruled, as a matter of law, that Northwest Sports was entitled to recover from Abbey and Barnes 44.44% of the advances made by Northwest to the Totems, other than those advances which were made for player development. The judge reasoned that advances for player development were made primarily for the benefit of Northwest Sports' Vancouver hockey club not for the Totems. The judge based his conclusion in part on the fact that, for Canadian tax purposes, the Vancouver club and Northwest Sports treated player development costs as expenses incurred by the Vancouver club and Northwest Sports, not as costs of the Totems for which Northwest Sports was making advances. 29 Northwest Sports argues that the contractual term all moneys advanced is not ambiguous and that the trial court erred in admitting extrinsic evidence of Northwest Sports' tax treatment of the advances. Abbey and Barnes point to the compound nature of the provision which could be rewritten as all moneys advanced by Northwest to Totems and all moneys paid by Northwest on behalf of Totems. Abbey and Barnes contend that the term advanced referred to sums expended by Northwest Sports to enable the Totems to pay several of its outstanding debts and liabilities that existed prior to or at the time Northwest Sports acquired its shares of the Totems stock, whether Northwest made the advances before or after the date of the 1972 Agreement. On the other hand, all moneys paid on behalf of Totems must, Abbey and Barnes argue, be read to exclude sums paid for player development costs because those sums were paid to the Totems for the purpose of training players for the NHL, and thus Vancouver's benefit. 30  'The intent of the parties to the contract is to be gleaned from the document itself, and only if it is ambiguous is parol evidence regarding the parties' actual intent admissible.'  Kwik-Lok Corp. v. Pulse, 41 Wash.App. 142, 702 P.2d 1226, 1229 (1985) (quoting McGary v. Westlake Investors, 99 Wash.2d 280, 285-86, 661 P.2d 971 (1983)) (citation omitted). The term ambiguous means  'capable of being understood in either of two or more possible senses.'  Kwik-Lok Corp., 702 P.2d at 1229 (quoting McGary v. Westlake Investors, 99 Wash.2d 280, 285-86, 661 P.2d 971 (1983)).  Words in a contract are to be given their ordinary meaning unless the context dictates otherwise. General Tel. Co. of the Northwest v. C-3 Assoc., 32 Wash.App. 550, 648 P.2d 491, 493 (1982). Whether a written contract is ambiguous is a question of law reviewed de novo. See General Tel. Co., 648 P.2d at 493. 31 The issue here is whether player development costs paid by Northwest Sports fall within the scope of the reimbursement provision. In order to determine whether those payments were made on behalf of the Totems, the court properly admitted extrinsic evidence to determine the purpose of those payments, but not to expand, vary or contradict the terms of the contract. See Morgan v. Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., 34 Wash.App. 801, 663 P.2d 1384, 1388 (1983). Northwest Sports contends that the trial court incorrectly evaluated that evidence in determining that amounts paid by Northwest Sports for player development costs did not constitute recoverable advances. We agree. 32 The trial court characterized all sums paid by Northwest Sports after the commencement of the 1972-73 season as player development costs. Prior to that point, Northwest Sports had advanced $595,000. 8 During and after the 1972-73 season Northwest Sports advanced over a million dollars to the Seattle Totems. The Totems then billed Northwest Sports for that amount as cost of developing players for the Vancouver Hockey Club, Ltd. These costs included salary, FICA, workman's compensation and bonuses. 33 Northwest Sports acknowledges that it intended to use the Totems as Vancouver's development club to train young hockey players before they entered major league competition, replacing its development club in Rochester, New York. Northwest Sports' tax treatment of the advances as player development costs is also probative on the issue of whether these payments were on behalf of the Totems. Nevertheless, the paid on behalf of Totems provision would be rendered meaningless if we construe it to exclude all advances by Northwest Sports to the Totems for operating expenses incurred by the Totems after Northwest Sports' acquisition of its majority interest. 34 The payments by Northwest Sports benefited the Totems directly, because they enabled the club to operate. Vancouver benefited also, because it was able to use the Seattle club to develop future major league players. We, therefore, conclude that the parties intended that Northwest Sports be reimbursed by Abbey and Barnes for all sums paid to the Totems to enable the club to continue in existence whether or not those sums also constituted payments for player development expenses of Northwest Sports. We reverse the partial directed verdict entered in favor of Abbey and Barnes and remand to the district court for entry of judgment in accordance with this opinion on Northwest Sports' breach of contract claim arising out of the 1972 Agreement.