Court Opinion

ID: 9666641
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:23:35.44586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:38.124223
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Judge,
concurring in result.
The principal opinion is quite correct in its decision to reverse the judgment in this case. For the reasons that follow, however, I would not remand for a new trial, but would remand with directions for the trial court to enter judgment for the defendants. Therefore, I concur in the result reached by the principal opinion.
Plaintiffs response and memorandum of law to defendants’ joint motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and motion for new trial indicates that plaintiff responded to the defendant’s affirmative defense prior to trial and offers five grounds in support of the trial court’s decision to overrule the defendant’s motion for summary judgment:

CONTRACTUAL WAIVER

Defendants have also raised the defense issue of contractual avoidance, based on a clause contained in the lease agreement between the parties. This issue was previously submitted to the court on a Motion for Summary Judgment and Memorandum of Law. This motion of defendant’s was denied (sic). Defendants again submitted the issue for consideration to the court on the date of trial, and same was denied.
Plaintiff contends that the clause contained in the lease agreement is void and unenforceable as the same is against Missouri Public Policy (sic)....
This language [of the exculpatory clause] purports to be a release from liability, [sic] however, there can be no release unless there exists at the time claimed a bona fide controversy concerning defendant’s legal liability on some issue in dispute between the parties....
At the time the parties executed the lease agreement, there was no controversy or dispute in existence regarding any injury or damage to plaintiff, and therefore, said clause should be deemed void. [3] Furthermore, ... the clause fails due to lack of consideration.
Additionally, the language [of the exculpatory clause] ... is ... “boiler plate” language intended for general application, and is thus wholly ineffective to *848immunize defendant from liability.... The intent of the parties in executing the lease was for the purposes of obtaining a residence and paying rent for same. A non-liability clause buried in small print on page 3 of a lease agreement does not represent the intention of the parties to a residential lease agreement.
The fifth argument claims that even if exculpatory lease agreements are valid in commercial settings, they are invalid in a residential setting.
Significantly, the plaintiff did not raise any factual or legal argument that would bring her under the rule announced in Alack v. Vic Tanny International of Missouri, Inc., 923 S.W.2d 330 (Mo. banc 1996): she did not claim that the language of the exculpatory clause was ambiguous or that she faded to notice the language of the clause in the contract she is presumed to have read before she signed it. Indeed, under Alack, the language in the exculpatory clause here is legally sufficient.
The only possible issue remaining on remand under Alack is the dubiously-grounded issue of conspicuous printing Alack mentions. I would not recognize Alack’s conspicuous requirement, but even if one assumes that Alack speaks to this point with authority, on this issue the plaintiff must assert both that the type-face was not sufficiently alerting and that she did not read the contract. (Alack, 923 S.W.2d at 340, Limbaugh, J., dissenting.)
Although the plaintiffs traverse of the defendants’ affirmative defense did not appear in the form suggested by Rule 55.01, it is beyond cavil that the parties and the trial court knew the nature of both parties’ claims on the issues surrounding the exculpatory clause. Plaintiffs papers make broad claims to defeat the exculpatory clause. They fail to claim, however, that plaintiff did not know of the exculpatory clause. The most her papers say on that subject is that she did not believe the parties intended to waive the defendants’ liability as part of a residential lease agreement.
I comprehend no reason on the record in this case that supports permitting the plaintiff another trial. Plaintiff had a full opportunity to respond to the affirmative defense. She did so, obviously raising every legal and factual claim to which her imagination entitled her. Her papers make no claim that she failed to read the contract or that in reading it, she failed to see the bold-type reading “NON-LIABILITY” that preceded the paragraph containing the exculpatory clause. Being fully apprised of the affirmative defense and aware through summary judgment motions of the need to traverse the affirmative defense, plaintiff could and should have made this claim at the first trial. She did not. Under these circumstances, the principal opinion invites convenient prevarication as the sole basis for a new trial.