Court Opinion

ID: 9547923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:54:23.441847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:15.125590
License: Public Domain

ON THE MERITS
*537Roger Tilbury argued the cause for appellant. On the brief were Roth & Tilbury, Portland.
John P. Ronchetto, Portland, argued the cause for respondent. On the brief was Thomas R. Mahoney, Portland.
Before McAllister, Chief Justice, and Warner, Sloan and King, Justices.
SLOAN, J.
 Plaintiff brought this action to obtain payment from the defendant of the amount alleged to have been agreed upon between the parties in settlement of an action previously filed by plaintiff against defendant for breach of promise. The case was tried to the court without a jury. There is evidence to sustain the findings of the trial court in favor of plaintiff and we are, thereby, bound by those findings. Du Val v. Miller, 208 Or 176, 300 P2d 416.
The trial judge found that on November 23, 1956, the defendant agreed to pay and the plaintiff agreed to accept $6,000 “by way of compromise and in full settlement and discharge of plaintiff’s cause of action against the defendant”; that the defendant prepared and submitted to the plaintiff appropriate documents necessary to effect the settlement and the defendant “there promised and agreed that upon proper execution of the said papers plaintiffs would be promptly paid the sum of SIX THOUSAND and no/100 f$6,000.00) Dollars by the defendant”; that the plaintiff did promptly execute the documents and returned *538them to the defendant hnt that thereafter the defendant refused to pay. Based upon these findings the court entered judgment against defendant for $6,000.
The only assignment of error is the failure of the trial court to allow a motion for involuntary non-suit. The contention made by defendant to the trial court and here is that the agreement sued upon was an accord and satisfaction agreement and was not binding and enforceable until the satisfaction called for was paid. He argues that until payment was made either party could renege.
The defendant indulges in the same confusion it is said was suffered by earlier, and some later, opinions of the courts. 12 Cal L R 411 (1924), 6 Williston on Contracts, (rev ed) § 1838 et seq., p. 5192. And see also an excellent treatise on the subject by Professor Joseph Grold, Lecturer, University College, London, and a Research Fellow of Harvard Law School found at 21 Boston Univ L R 465 (1941). From these authorities, and from the cases there cited, we glean that a part, at least, of the difficulty has arisen in failing to recognize the difference between the right to allege an unsatisfied accord as a plea in bar to the original claim or debt and the right of the promisee to enforce payment of the satisfaction agreed upon.
“Though an executory promise to give something in satisfaction of a cause of action cannot while unperformed be a legal bar to an action upon the original cause at common law, the mar ties may, as has already been said, agree that an executory promise shall itself be the satisfaction of the old right; and if the claimant accents a promise with that agreement, his original claim is at once extinguished. Unless he can find reasons *539justifying rescission of the transaction, he must thereafter find his only remedy upon the new promise. This doctrine is modern, and it may well be doubted whether early courts would have admitted the possibility, under any circumstances, of an executory informal contract, other than the negative one of perpetual forbearance, extinguishing an existing cause of action; but the principle seems logically correct and is now well-settled law. So far, indeed, has the doctrine been carried that a contract unenforceable because of the Statute of Frauds has been held operative as a satisfaction of a prior enforceable contract.” § 1846, Williston on Contracts, supra.
Williston refers to this as a “modern” doctrine. It was recognized as long ago as 1851 by the Supreme Court of the United States in Very v. Levy, 54 U S 345 (13 How), 14 L ed 173.
State ex rel v. Funk, 105 Or 134, 199 P 592, 209 P 113, is distinguishable on the facts. There, a contractor who had engaged to build the municipal auditorium in Portland was attempting to enforce an alleged promise on the part of the city council of Portland to reimburse him for losses suffered in the performance of the contract. This court held that there had been no legal obligation on the part of the city to make the payment and no forbearance of a right on the part of the plaintiff. Hence, there had been no valid dispute to be settled by the alleged agreement. That case cannot be relied upon as preventing the enforcement by plaintiff of the agreement in this case.
Bloech v. Hyland Homes Co. et al, 128 Or 292, 274 P 318, was a case in which the court required performance of a contract by which the creditor had accepted a promise to receive real property in sub*540stitution of a claim for wages of greater monetary-value than the land. The court construed the substitute agreement to be binding and enforceable. Although not directly in point, it reflects the same trend of judicial opinion described by Williston. Some of the dicta in Smith v. Foster, 5 Or 44, would appear to perhaps hold to the contrary rule. A careful analysis of the short opinion, however, sustains the rule we now apply. The ease involved an alleged agreement for substitute payment of an overdue note. In referring to the alleged substitute agreement as constituting payment, the court correctly said at pp 44-45: “Such an agreement could not operate as a payment of the note unless it was accepted as such by the party to whom the original promise was made.” This is in accord with the doctrine expressed by Williston, to which we have referred. 6 Williston, op cit supra, § 1841. When we apply the rule in Smith v. Foster, supra, and similar cases cited by defendant, to the instant case the effect would be to bar the defendant from asserting his promise to pay $6,000 as a defense to the original complaint unless it had been accepted by the plaintiff. It does not preclude the plaintiff from enforcing the defendant’s promise to pay that amount when she had accepted the offer in lieu of her claim for damages. By the same authority and reason, defendant’s failure to pay the satisfaction agreed upon could only bar the defendant from pleading the compromise agreement if plaintiff had attempted to revive her original action. T-TN own failure to perform could not be claimed as a defense to this action. Restatement, Contracts, §417.
There is other, and actually stronger, reason for affirming the trial court.
*541The rule is well established since Smith v. Farra, 21 Or 395 (28 Pac. 241, 20 L. R. A. 115), that ‘a settlement and compromise of a claim asserted on reasonable grounds and in good faith, which the parties, having equal knowledge of the facts, consider doubtful, constitute a new and valid agreement which will be enforced in law, although the matter compromised he not in fact doubtful in legal contemplation, and the settlement he not what a court would have adjudged upon the facts of the case’ * * Young v. King, 85 Or 22, 25, 166 P 53. See also Hodges Agency, Inc. v. Rees and Stover, 202 Or 139, 158, 272 P2d 216.
The defendant asks that we review facts which he claims establish the defendant’s lack of legal acquiescence in the compromise agreement. The findings of the trial court resolve those questions.
For the reasons stated, the judgment is affirmed.