Court Opinion

ID: 9883327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 01:40:22.122293+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:17.659416
License: Public Domain

*809MOORE, P. J., Concurring.
I concur. I do so with deep anxiety in view of the precise allocation of the money to the payment of the rentals for specified months of the term of the lease. Since those months had not arrived, the moneys were never earned. My hesitancy arises from a deep-seated dislike for any scheme that transfers to a person the property of his neighbor without adequate return. Defendant has the same property he had on the day he leased it to plaintiffs’ predecessor, but at the same time he has also $20,000 of plaintiffs’ money.
But to hold that the retention of the $20,000 by defendant would be a forfeiture were tantamount to saying that we have a contract utterly without mutuality. In view of such dilemma as would thereby be created I am persuaded that Mr. Justice Stephens has wisely solved the problem presented. If the balance remaining in defendant’s hands at the time of the cancellation was not intended to constitute payment for the privilege of being discharged from further obligations under the lease, then plaintiffs had the right to determine at any time during the ten-year term whether they would stay in or go out without having to pay one penny for the privilege. It is an essential of a valid contract that the obligation of one party should be supported by an adequate consideration on the part of the other. Reading the lease by its four corners, it appears that a genuine attempt was made to provide for the compensation of the lessor in the event the lessee should desire to withdraw from his engagement to operate the property during the ten-year term.
Courts should, only after the exercise of due caution, approve the transfer of the title to moneys without the passing of adequate consideration therefor. It was for a long time the disposition of courts to look upon such a provision as that under consideration with disfavor and to construe it strictly in order that damages provided to be paid in the event of a breach might be treated as penalties. By such holding it was rendered difficult to recover except for only such loss as could be definitely proved. But the modern tendency is, when a contract has been deliberately conceived and executed by two mature parties with equal understanding of their respective rights, to regard such provisions as inserted for the purpose of promoting prompt performance of the contract as well as to adjust amicably in advance the settlement of a potential controversy without uncertainty, delay and expense. To this *810end courts now industriously seek to ascertain the true intention of the parties at the time of making provision for the payment of a designated sum upon the breach of a covenant, rather than merely to conclude that it is a penalty because of the failure of the parties to include a stipulation that it would be extremely difficult to determine the amount of damage to be suffered in the event of a breach. (Wise v. United States, 249 U. S. 361 [39 S. Ct. 303, 63 L. R. A. 647].)
A petition for a rehearing was denied April 8, 1942, and respondents’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied May 25, 1942. Carter, J., and Traynor, J., voted for a hearing.