Court Opinion

ID: 9753840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:32:18.872058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:43.730844
License: Public Domain

HERRMANN, Chief Justice
(dissenting) :
I would reverse on the ground of speculative delay and laches.
The appellee Franklin L. Shorley was the real estate broker with whom Dr. and Mrs. Wilkes1 placed the listing to sell the property. The other appellees are real estate brokers and investors with whom Shorley associated himself in the purchase of the property.
The contract of July 25, 1963, specifying the sales price of $112,500., provided for a total cash payment of $25,000., the balance of $87,500. payable to the Wilkes over a ten year period, with interest at 6%. The listing specified the title problems encumbering the sale. It is undisputed that from the appellee-purchasers’ point of view this was a speculative land transaction from the beginning.
On December 31, 1963, the Deputy Attorney General for Sussex County issued an opinion contesting on behalf of the State the title to all the Wilkes’ beachfront land. The effect of the opinion was that the Wilkes were unable to deliver insurable title, as required by the contract; and the purchasers were unwilling to accept a quit claim deed.
The years 1964, 1965, and 1966 went by with no change in the position of the parties and no communication of any substance between them except as to the $5,000. deposit being held in escrow. During that period, Wilkes’ attorney was engaged in an unsuccessful attempt to change the Attorney General’s opinion on title. In February, 1967, the State filed suit against the Wilkes claiming title to all 28 acres of the property, both beachfront and bayside.2 *205In the summer of 1967, the purchasers suggested that the Wilkes convey title to the undisputed portion of the property and accept a reduced purchase price. The Wilkes replied that this was impossible because all of the property was then in dispute; but a counter proposal was made by Wilkes in August, 1967, that the purchasers take such title as the Wilkes then had in the entire property, together with the law suit and its expense, without abatement of purchase price.3 This counter offer was declined by the purchasers in September, 1967.
Again, there was a lapse of many months without any action by the parties. Finally, in July, 1968, the purchasers offered to take title in the form of a “special warranty deed to the undisputed land and a quit claim deed to the land currently in dispute”. The Wilkes contended that they were unable to agree because title to all of the property was then in dispute. This action for specific performance was brought by the purchasers in April, 1969.
In the meanwhile:
(1) From the time of the Attorney General’s opinion in December, 1963, to the present, the Wilkes have been engaged in continued, protracted, and expensive legal proceedings in defense of title to the property ;4 and
(2) During this litigation, the State abandoned its claim to the bayside portion of the property and the appellee-purchasers finally agreed to take a quit claim deed to the property, subject to the pending law suit; and
(3)During the years since 1963, when the sales contract was created, the property has appreciated in value substantially.5
To summarize: as early as 1963, the purchasers could have had the result to which they finally agreed during trial in 1971, i. e., a quit claim deed to the entire property, without abatement of purchase price and with the pending law suit. Such quit claim deed has been the only course of action available to the parties over the years. The purchasers failed to pursue that right and remedy until years after it was available to them; rather, they chose to rest secure in their “heads-we-win-tails-you-lose” position over the years, during which the Wilkes continued to protect and preserve the property.
I am persuaded that the equities are clearly with the appellant, Mrs. Wilkes, and that the appellee-purchasers have been guilty of inexcusable delay in asserting their right, i. e., laches sufficient to bar recovery within the classic definition stated in Wright v. Scotton, 13 Del.Ch. 402, 121 A. 69, 72 (1923):
“ * * * Generally, if there has been unreasonable delay in asserting claims, or if, knowing his rights, a party does not seasonably avail himself of means at hand for their enforcement, but suffers his adversary to incur expense, or enter into obligations or otherwise change his position, or in any way by inaction lulls suspicion of his demands to the harm of the other, or if there has been actual or passive acquiescence in the performance of the act complained of, equity will ordinarily refuse her aid.”

. Dr. Wilkes is deceased; Mrs. Wilkes is the appellant.

. This action is still pending, although in 1971 the State abandoned its claim to the bayside portion of the property and now limits its claim to the beachfront portion.

. In substance, this 1967 proposal by the Wilkes was the conclusion and final judgment of the Court below.

. The expense thereof to the Wilkes was estimated at about $30,000. Throughout, the ap-pellee-purchasers made no effort to join in the defense of title or in the expense thereof.

.According to expert witnesses, the 1969 value of the tract was somewhere between ■ $749,000. and $1,119,000.