Court Opinion

ID: 9789926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:44:01.470363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:25.232643
License: Public Domain

*513BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in part.
Although I was at first inclined to fully join the Court’s opinion, upon further reflection I see rather clearly that the opinion places undue emphasis on the doctrine of waiver, from which it springs to the conclusion that there is a dispute as to the underlying facts giving or not giving rise to a waiver — thereby making summary judgment inappropriate. In addition, the Court’s opinion fails to note or consider that the offer of the third party, which led to a mutually acceptable counter-proposal, included a $5,000 earnest money payment. The earnest money offer to purchase required acceptance in five days. This explains the relatively short period of time, three days, which Meridian Athletic Association extended to Meridian Bowling Lanes as the allotted time in which to exercise the oral grant of the right of first refusal. The third party, Fuller-Svaty, did not go ahead on the transaction, and, apparently, neither did Meridian Bowling. That its president, Mr. Quintieri, testified by deposition that he wanted further explanation of the terms agreed upon by Fuller-Svaty and Meridian Athletic Association does not appear to rise to the presenting of genuinely disputed fact issue. He was given a copy of the January 1977 written earnest money agreement and the agreed-to counter proposal which raised the earnest money deposit to $6,000, required an additional down payment of $1,000 over and above the Labor Day payment of $5,000 provided for in the FullerSvaty offer, and increased annual payments to $12,000 instead of $10,000, commencing in January of 1978. The total purchase price remained as offered, $150,000. While it does seem difficult to ascertain from the earnest money agreement the interest rate on the unpaid balance, ordinarily the legal rate would apply if no interest rate has been charged.
There seems to be no contention that the Fuller-Svaty offer was not bona fide. Accordingly, offered the opportunity to purchase on the same terms, Meridian Bowling would either accept the proposition, or decline to do so. The right to decline is that which sets options apart from mutually obligatory contracts. The holder is the owner of a right of exercise.
As the trial court noted in its Memorandum Decision, “M.B.L. failed to exercise the option regarding the Fuller-Svaty sale.... ” And this is the crux of it. An option is either exercised or it is not. Here it was not exercised — notwithstanding which, one and one-half years later it claimed that the option was still alive after Meridian Athletic Association made the transaction with Hepper Homes. It is true that to the court’s statement above set forth was added this language: “thereby waiving, forfeiting and abandoning the option and causing it to terminate.” Clearly use of the word “waiver” was not in the sense of the doctrine of waiver, but merely another way of saying that the option was not exercised. Equally so with the words “forfeit” and “abandon.”
The important issue which the Court does not this day address is whether an option of first refusal survives after not being exercised on an opportunity to purchase on the terms of the first bona fide third party offer. The district court held that it did not. This Court should address that issue as readily as it addressed the option-of-first-refusal questions which were presented in Gyurkey v. Babler, 103 Idaho 663, 651 P.2d 928 (1982), which opinion was in point of time issued after the district court ruled in the instant ease.
The Gyurkey controversy revolved around a written option, which as to terms of compliance was as equally silent as the oral option here involved. There we dealt with making precedential law which hopefully would avoid controversies. Today we decline to determine whether, absent specific language so providing, and certainly not in writing, an option of first refusal survives the failure to exercise a presented opportunity to meet a bona fide third party offer.
*514The district court in reaching its conclusions had before it the testimony of Mr. Quintieri, which in pertinent part included these statements:
“Q. And who was the person you primarily negotiated with representing the Meridian Athletic Association?
“A. There were several people. Mr. Bird, in particular I believe, was the president at that time. He was one of the prime people we negotiated with.
“Q. And what was the purchase price you paid for the property?
“A. We finally negotiated a price of $13,000 for that particular parcel of property.
“Q. Again, referring to Mr. Bird’s testimony of yesterday, do you have any strong disagreements with that portion of his testimony that related to how the negotiations took place relative to purchasing the ‘70 foot wide piece of property’?
“A. Yes, to the point that he did not state the first right of refusal that we were granted for any additional purchases, plus the use of that road, as a permanent use of that road so we could improve it, pave it, spend monies on it so that our client, who was the Calico Pizza at the time, would have access from that entrance to his pizza parlor.
“Q. Let’s talk about what evidently is one of two or three differences. You have testified that you disagreed with the first right of refusal in Mr. Bird’s description of it. What was your understanding of your first right of refusal?
“A. My understanding was that if and when Meridian Athletic Association would want to dispose of any additional property, we would be given the right of first refusal to purchase that land. That right was granted to us.
“Q. Okay. And was that right to exist in perpetuity forever?
“A. That’s my understanding.
“Q. And that right was to benefit the plaintiff corporation in this lawsuit; is that correct?
“A. Meridian Bowling Lanes, Inc., yes.
“Q. Now, you also, I think, were present yesterday when there was some testimony about an offer from Norman Fuller and partners in January of 1977; do you recall being apprised of that proposal made by Mr. Fuller and his partners?
“A. Yes, I received a letter from Mr. Jack Riddlemoser’s office and in that letter was a copy of that offer.
“Q. And did you respond to that letter?
“A. I did not respond in writing, but I called. I called Mr. Riddlemoser’s office and asked for an explanation as to whether those terms were right. Those terms did not spell out any interest charges. I wanted verification of that. And I was told that they would check into it and advise me.
“Q. You were told by who?
“A. Mr. Riddlemoser himself.
“Q. Do you recall when you made that phone call?
“A. Probably a day after I received it, or that same afternoon that I received it.
“Q. Do you recall when you received the letter? I’ll represent to you that it’s dated January 10, 1977.
“A. I don’t think I received it until about the 12th or 13th, when I received the letter.
“Q. And did Mr. Riddlemoser get back to you?
“A. No, sir.
“Q. I take it it’s your position that your first right of refusal was more than what Mr. Bird described to us as *515being a one-shot first right of refusal?
“A. That is correct, sir.
“Q. Would you again characterize for me in your own words what you think your first right of refusal was.
“A. In my opinion, my first right of refusal was to either accept or reject an offer. If I rejected the offer and no one else accepted the offer, that would void that first right of refusal. I someone else accepted the offer, I, of course, would have lost my first right of refusal. If I had negated the acceptance of it.”
Deposition of Quintieri, pp. 8-11.
“Q. All right. In your testimony earlier you were stating to Mr. Shoemaker what you understood the right of first refusal to consist of. I believe your testimony was to the effect that if the offer was presented but no one consummated the sale, that it would, and you used the word ‘void’ the right of first refusal?
“A. That’s correct.
“Q. What did you mean by that? I want to just get a clarification on that.
“A. I just assumed that as long as the right to purchase that land was not granted to me upon the stipulation that I made, that it was a good deal and would wait further word from Mr. Riddlemoser. Subsequently, we were told, I don’t know how we got the information, but that the Fuller’s were not going to be the purchasers of the ground, that no one was going to be the purchaser of the ground.
“Q. Well, okay. Now, in the context of the way you used the word ‘void,’ the right of first refusal, what did you mean by that?
“A. I meant by that that it was not an offer made to me, that it had been voided out and subsequent offers would be tended to me again, as on the first refusal.
“Q. All right. Thank you.
MR. PARK: That’s all I have.
RE-EXAMINATION
QUESTIONS BY MR. SHOEMAKER
“Q. Just a couple more. What was it that voided the offer that you just talked about?
“A. Are you referring to the offer from Norm Fuller?
“Q. Yes.
“A. In my opinion, no return call to me that the offer was a bona fide offer, and the report back that the Fuller’s were not appraised of the offer or the acceptance of the counter-offer, that that just voided the whole thing. And it did not constitute an offer of first refusal.
“Q. You mean Mr. Riddlemoser’s failure, as you state it, to return your call or get back to you, voided the offer?
“A. Right.
“Q. In your opinion?
“A. Yes.
“Q. And you mentioned some other communications relayed to you perhaps through Mr. Riddlemoser about Mr. Fuller’s understanding of what his offer was?
“A. No, I didn’t state that I got that from Mr. Riddlemoser.
“Q. Okay. So I understand you correctly, what voided the offer as presented to you, the Fuller offer, was Mr. Riddlemoser’s failure, and you describe it, to get back to you; correct?
“A. Plus the fact that the Fuller’s were not awarded the thing, the offer.
“Q. By ‘awarded’, you mean the sale was not consummated?
“A. Right.
“Q. It’s your feeling that under this particular right of first refusal the third party offeror would have to *516consummate the deal, in the event that you declined not to?
“A. If I would have declined the offer, I would have lost my right of first refusal. I did not decline the offer.
“Q. Did you accept the offer?
“A. I made mention it was a good deal and we would be interested in it if the terms as spelled out in the contract were correct.
“Q. Did anyone ever tell you that the terms were incorrect?
“A. No, I never heard that from them.
“Q. You inquired of Mr. Riddlemoser, as you put it, basically for clarification?
“A. Of that.
“Q. Did anyone ever tell you that the terms of the offer as transmitted to you under cover of Mr. Riddlemoser’s letter of January of 1977 were incorrect?
“A. Not to my knowledge, that’s what I was waiting to hear.
“Q. So you were never told that they were incorrect?
“A. Pardon?
“Q. You were never told the terms of the offer were incorrect?
“A. I wasn’t told whether they were incorrect or correct.”
Deposition of Quintieri, pp. 57-61.
It is difficult to say, as the Court’s opinion does, that the district court erred in the view that the foregoing created an issue of fact, and that there remains a fact issue to be tried. The case is thus much like the opinion in Shaw v. City of Rupert, Idaho, P.2d (1983) (rehearing granted). As I see it, the only debatable issue is a question of law.
Although the district court upheld the oral option, an agreement made and respected by men of obvious integrity, which is heartening, the court was obviously of the view that Mr. Quintieri’s testimony as a matter of fact ruled out the survival of the option — or, equally possible, the court may have entertained that view as a matter of law. To send the controversy back for a trial to determine what the parties orally agreed to regarding the survival of the oral option acquired by Meridian Bowling Lanes almost ten years ago is to set a task most difficult and maybe futile as well, should it ultimately be held another five years hence that one bona fide offer passed on to an option holder who does not exercise his option, terminates the option. The district court here clearly held in ruling that “It is clear that had the sale been consummated, M.B.L. could not be heard to complain because it failed to exercise its option. Its right ended at that point. The fact that the Fuller-Svaty sale was not completed did not revive the M.B.L. option because M.B.L. had already intentionally abandoned the right to exercise the option by its failure to exercise the option in fact.”
While in my view this case, and in my view a great majority of those we see, could be better and with more finality decided by a submission on the merits, and perhaps making use of depositions where feasible, I generally do not fault the Court’s view that a trial on the merits was here preferable to a determination on a motion for summary judgment.1 I do regret that the Court eschews the opportunity to provide some guidance on the question of law which still confronts the parties.

. There was extensive discovery in this case, and it appears that the issue decided on motion could have readily been tried in a trial of less than a day. In a large number of cases this.is so.