Court Opinion

ID: 9579806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:58:47.740047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:47.359942
License: Public Domain

ROSSMAN, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent. The contract in this case provides that installments are to be paid on the first day of each month and that a default will occur if defendants fail to make any payment “at the time required, or within ten (10) days thereof.” It does not provide that payments must be received within ten days of the first of each month. Accordingly, because I would hold that defendants made payment of the May, 1984, installment on May 10, when they mailed it to the escrow company, I would affirm the trial court.
In Lent v. Towery, 271 Or 41, 47, 530 P2d 77 (1975), the court stated that the defendant vendee could have mailed his payment to the plaintiff vendor and that that would have been a “sufficient tender under ORS 81.010 to 81.030” unless the vendor objected. Here, because, as the majority points out, the parties contemplated that defendants’ monthly payments would be mailed to the escrow company, plaintiff was precluded from objecting to defendants’ tender on that ground.
The majority apparently concludes that payment was constructively tendered only when the envelope in which it *551was contained was placed in the escrow company’s post office box.1 It follows that, even if defendants had mailed the payment on May 1, the majority would have concluded that plaintiff would have been entitled to reject the tender and declare a default if it was delivered after the end of the grace period. With all due respect, one should not be so placed at the mercy of the Postal Service without the parties having so agreed.

 I assume that even the majority would hesitate before conditioning the timeliness of defendants’ tender on the efficiency of the escrow company in picking up its mail.