Court Opinion

ID: 9860026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:07:36.478796+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:17:00.125405
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
I have no disagreement with the court’s conclusion that the statutory landlords’ lien is prior to the bank’s security interest in the crops. I cannot agree, however, with its additional conclusion that the bank, through a course of conduct, waived its rights under the subordination agreement executed by the landlords.
The obvious purpose of the subordination agreement was to protect the bank in the event the tenants, at some time in the future, were unable to pay their obligations to both the bank and the landlords. All of the parties involved in this transaction would have realized that it was essential that the annual cash rent be paid to the landlords if the tenants were to continue on the farm. Consequently, the only situation in which the bank would have been expected to invoke its contractual priority would involve the tenants’ insolvency.
Until that situation arose, there was no reason for the bank to interfere with rental payments to the landlords. I therefore fail to see how the bank’s failure to invoke its contractual priority at some earlier time is in any way indicative of a waiver of that right.