Court Opinion

ID: 9459595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:25:02.457368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:14.081720
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
By petition for rehearing appellees correctly point out that our opinion erroneously stated that by formal pre-trial stipulation the parties agreed that Ahrenholz knew of and agreed to and ratified the change in the closing date in the contract. See also footnote 7 of our opinion. Such a stipulation was proposed by plaintiff but apparently not accepted by the defendants. The absence of a consummated stipulation does not, however, change the result.
Ahrenholz’s theory of the case can be described this way. When, around July 25, Behring’s representative and Sun’s representative met to consider whether Behring would agree to the changes required by Sun, Ahrenholz agreed (in a telephone conversation with Behring’s *314representative) to a 60-day extension of the closing date. Behring’s representative then changed paragraph 9 of the proposed contract so that it provided for settlement on or before September 25. If the consequence of this change was to leave in effect the right of the Buyer (Sun) to extend the closing date for a period of 180 days from September 25, the “aforesaid date,” referred to in paragraph 9 as amended, then the change made by Behring.’s representative departed from what Ahrenholz had agreed to, and Ahrenholz is bound to no more than he agreed to.
The contract, as amended, to which only Behring and Sun were parties, was unambiguous. It may not be rendered ambiguous by misunderstandings — if there were any — in a private conversation between Behring’s representative and Ahrenholz. For purposes of assenting to changes in the proposed contract, Ahrenholz made Behring’s representative his own representative. As between Ahrenholz and Sun, under fundamental principles of agency law Ahrenholz cannot escape responsibility for the commitment made by his representative. Whether Behring’s negotiator had actual or apparent authority to represent Ahrenholz’s position, Ahrenholz is responsible for the negotiator’s [allegedly] unauthorized representations if true representations as to the same matter were within his authority, and if Sun had no notice that the representations were unauthorized. Restatement (2d), Agency §§ 51, 145, 149, 162, 169. Ahrenholz gave Sun no notification of any limits to Behring’s authority, nothing appears’ in the record to indicate Sun knew of any limitations, and nothing about the course of dealing or the relative positions of the parties indicates that Sun should have known or had reason to know of Ahrenholz’s intentions or instructions about the 60 day extension. See Restatement (2d), Agency § 9.
The petition for rehearing is denied.