Opinion ID: 1382275
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Plaintiff's letter of June 21, 1976, was an acceptance of defendants' offer to sell the ranch lands.

Text: The trial court, in a written opinion stating its findings of fact and conclusions of law, held that:    [T]his court finds that the conduct of the defendant together with the words (in Exhibit 3): `Selling    at the assessed market value    terms available   ' leads to only one reasonable objective conclusion; the defendants were making an offer to sell their property. As previously stated, we agree with that finding and conclusion. In that same opinion, the trial court then considered the question whether plaintiff's letter of June 21, 1976, was an acceptance of that offer. As previously stated, plaintiff responded to defendants' letter of June 17, 1976, by a letter dated June 21, 1976, as follows: Re the land in Bear Valley near Seneca, Oregon that you have offered for sale; I accept your offer. The trial court held that the letter was an acceptance of defendants' offer as an offer to sell their ranch lands, but was not an acceptance of any offer to sell the grazing permits. In so holding the trial court recognized that the terms of an acceptance cannot vary from the terms of an offer, but went on to state as follows: It is undisputed that both parties were aware that grazing permits can only be `waived' (transferred) if there is commensurate land or cattle. Without either, the permits expire. At the first conversations between the parties, defendant advised plaintiff that he was going to offer the permits to plaintiff's neighbor.      There were no preliminary discussions between the parties about whether the permits would be sold separately. From the defendants' conversation, the plaintiff could reasonably believe that the permits were going to be sold to someone else, since a neighbor with available commensurate land could arrange for their transfer or defendants could potentially retain the permits for their own use if land or cattle remained as a base. The lack of specificity as to terms negates this portion of Exhibit 3 as an offer and constitutes only a preliminary negotiation.    Its separation from the sale price and specific terms of the Bear Valley land in Exhibit 3 lend further objective manifestation that the purchase of the permits could be severed.    Defendants contend that the trial court reached inconsistent conclusions in first holding that defendants' letter of June 17th was an offer to sell the ranch lands, but that the same letter was not sufficiently specific to constitute an offer to sell the grazing permits. Defendants' brief then discusses at some length their contention that defendants' letter of June 17th was ambiguous, and contends that it was against reason to construe that letter as anything but an offer to sell the lands and permits as a package. We view the opinion of the trial court, however, as holding that plaintiff's letter of June 21st was an acceptance only of an offer by defendants to sell the ranch lands, but not an acceptance of any offer to sell the grazing permits, as being based upon two independent grounds: (1) that from the previous conversations between the parties plaintiff could reasonably believe that the permits were going to be sold to someone else; i.e., that defendants' letter of June 17th was an offer to sell to plaintiff the ranch lands separately from the permits, and that, in any event, (2) that there was such a lack of specificity in the terms of defendants' letter of June 17th as they related to the permits as to negate that portion of the letter as an offer to sell the permits. In our opinion, any inconsistency in the opinion of the trial court in its holding that defendants' letter of June 17th was sufficiently specific to constitute an offer to sell the ranch lands, but was not sufficiently specific to constitute an offer to sell the grazing permits, is not fatal to the ultimate holding by the trial court that defendants' letter of June 17th was an offer to sell the ranch lands to plaintiff, and that his responding letter of June 21st was an acceptance of that letter as an offer to sell such lands separately from any sale of the grazing permits. Again, this is because, we agree with the trial court in the finding and conclusion as stated in its written opinion that under all of the facts and circumstances, including the preliminary discussions between the parties, the plaintiff could reasonably believe that the permits were going to be sold to someone else. Having reached this conclusion it is immaterial, in our view, whether or not defendants' letter of June 17th was ambiguous, except as any such ambiguity was properly a factor in reaching a conclusion whether, under all the facts and circumstances, a reasonable person in plaintiff's position would have understood defendants' letter of June 17th to be an offer to sell the ranch lands to him separately from the grazing permits. The further fact, as noted by defendants, that plaintiff did not rely on anything in the letter of June 17th as a document to tell whether the permits had to go with the land or not is also inconclusive, in our opinion. This is because, as previously stated, not only the words of that letter, but all of the facts and circumstances, including the initial conversation between the parties and their later telephone conversation, were to be considered in making a finding or conclusion that a reasonable person in plaintiff's situation would have understood the letter of June 17th to be an offer by defendants to sell the ranch lands separately from the range permits.