Opinion ID: 1799636
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the trial court erred in granting the motion for summary judgment.

Text: ¶ 24. Freeman and Diogenes claim that the court should have denied the Center's Motion for Summary Judgment because at least one material factual dispute existed. That being whether or not the Center breached the contract by failing to have the portfolios ready on the publication date. The Center claims that no breach existed and that the Court was correct in granting the Motion because the publication date was clearly defined in the contract as being the first date upon which any of the portfolios could be sold. As such, the Center claims that it had not breached the contract because it could have sold the portfolios on that date. ¶ 25. Contracts are read as a whole so as to give effect to all of their provisions. Brown v. Hartford Ins. Co., 606 So.2d 122, 124 (Miss. 1992). In this particular contract, twenty-one of the portfolios were to be distributed to the three parties to the contract equally on the publication date. These could not be sold for six months. It is not readily apparent to this Court how those portfolios could be distributed on the publication date if they were not yet assembled. Nor is it apparent how the Center, which had primary responsibility for marketing the portfolios, and had enumerated responsibilities to that end, could hold the portfolios for sale on the publication date when, by its own admission, it did absolutely nothing to let anyone other than the parties to the contract know that the portfolios even existed until February, 1993. ¶ 26. Further, Diogenes and Freeman claim that the Center's marketing of the portfolio was haphazard and insufficient to the task. The sufficiency of the Center's marketing effort is also a question of fact which is properly decided by a jury. It was shown from the record that the Center did not send a mass mailing out to various museums, galleries, and individuals that it thought would be interested in the portfolios until August 18, after the joint marketing period was over. Whether such a late advertisement breached the contract was a jury question. There is also the assertion on the part of Diogenes and Freeman that Ferris unilaterally decided that the portfolios did not have to be embossed. Whether or not such a decision was unilaterally made, was the decision of Ferris, or resulted from some failure to act on the part of Diogenes, who had the responsibility to emboss the portfolios is similarly, a question of fact which is properly decided by a jury. ¶ 27. As a result, this Court finds that the trial judge should have denied the Motion for summary Judgment and allowed this case to proceed to trial.