Court Opinion

ID: 9631986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:58:16.159794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:05.447662
License: Public Domain

McFarland, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part: I concur with the majority’s conclusion that the contract is ambiguous. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the intention of the parties can be determined without affording the parties the *761opportunity to present parol and other extrinsic evidence relative thereto.
It is true all parties sought summary judgment and in so doing alleged that the contract was not ambiguous. This is not binding upon either the district court or an appellate court. The majority opinion has correctly held the contract is ambiguous. The district court sustained the plaintiff landowners’ motion for summary judgment. The majority opinion reverses this determination and, in effect, sustains defendant pipeline company’s motion for summary judgment. If ever a question of contractual interpretation cried out for parol or extrinsic evidence to explain the parties’ intentions, this one does. Consider the following:
1. None of the parties hereto are the original parties to the contract.
2. The crucial date in paragraphs 5 and 6 is June 23, 1944, but no party has any explanation of the significance of that date (the contract was executed on January 11, 1951).
3. Paragraph 7 of the contract provides:
“There now exists on the lands described in this lease no producing gas well and for the purposes of this contr act the parties have taken measures to ascertain and calculate the amount of gas underlying the premises involved and do hereby agree that there was on june 23,1944 no cubic feet there, computed on a basis of two (2) pounds per square inch above an agreed atmospheric pressure of 14.4 pounds.”
4. The contract is wholly typewritten and is not a fill-in-the blanks form contract which frequently results in apparent confusing and conflicting language.
5. The pipeline company has stored and continues to store gas on the leased premises. No well capable of delivering gas has been completed by “the pipeline company.” Hence the option created in the final sentence of paragraph 6 to apply paragraph 5 is not available — yet paragraph 5 contains the only reference to the supplying of gas to the “principal dwelling house.” In fact this “principal dwelling house” phrase relates wholly to supplying free gas in lieu of free gas to which the First Party would be entitled to under some gas lease which is and was nonexistent. The only cheap gas mentioned in paragraph 5 is gas used in excess of the 300,000 cubic feet of free gas, but there has never been any free gas.
6. There is simply no way to determine from examining the *762contract to determine just what was intended by the parties by their inclusion of the language contained in paragraphs 5 and 6.
I would reverse and remand the case for further proceedings. The contract has been found to be ambiguous. Parol and other extrinsic evidence should be admitted as to the intention of the parties and the usual custom and practice of the industry. The intention of the parties should be determined by a tiler of facts — not by a district court on summary judgment, or by this court on appellate review of the entry of summary judgment.
Lockett, J., joins the foregoing dissenting opinion.