Court Opinion

ID: 9475864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:40:54.368909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:59.534818
License: Public Domain

WILL, Senior District Judge, dissenting.
There is only one issue in this case: whether the preannexation agreement between the city and Moffitt is ambiguous. If, as the majority concludes, the agreement is ambiguous, then the district court erred in granting Moffitt’s motion for summary judgment. If, however, the agreement is clear, we must affirm the district court’s ruling. Because I find that the agreement, when combined with the undisputed physical facts, clearly defines Moffitt’s obligations regarding the construction of the new north-south street, I would affirm the district court’s ruling.
The allegedly ambiguous paragraph in the preannexation agreement provides:
Gene Moffitt would donate his portion of the land shown on the site- plan and would pay for the cost of constructing the street north from TJ.S. Route 54 approximately 520feet to a point on the plan where the east line of the subject property appears north on the west right-of-way line of the proposed street. Included in the street construction at that point would be the storm sewer as shown on the plan. Concurrently with the construction of the approximate 520 linear feet of street and storm sewer by Gene R. Moffitt, the City would construct the remaining portion of the street and storm sewer. (Emphasis added).
The majority works hard to manufacture ambiguity by proposing alternate interpretations of this paragraph. For example, the majority claims that the paragraph is subject to two reasonable interpretations because (1) the word “street” could include intersection, and (2) that even if the word “street” excludes the intersection, the “street north from U.S. Route 54 approximately 520 feet” could still begin at a point within the Route 54 right of way.
The majority claims that Moffitt’s interpretation of the contract requires inserting “right of way of” before “U.S. Route 54,” and that this reading of paragraph 3 is “counterintuitive.” Since appeals to “intuition” are little more than assertions, they can be rebutted only by announcing different intuitions. Let me therefore try to move the discussion from intuition and mere assertion to rational analysis.
It may be that the majority finds Moffitt’s obligations unclear because it extracts the four word phrase “from U.S. Route 54” from the middle of a sixty word sentence. This phrase is not at all ambiguous if read in context. The sentence says Moffitt is obligated to “pay for the cost of constructing the street north from US. Route 54 approximately 520 feet____” The actual distance from the north right of way line of U.S. Route 54 to the northeast corner of Moffitt’s property is 526 feet, six feet more than the 520 feet mentioned in the contract. Measuring from the northern edge of the pavement of Route 54 would add 38 more feet, for a total not of 526 feet but 564 feet. It seems clear to me that 564 feet is simply too long to be “approximately 520 feet.” The majority finds this argument unimpressive because it claims (1) that “approximately” has no fixed meaning, and a deviation of less than 10% is not precluded by use of so “vague” a word, and (2) that the suspect language (from U.S. Route 54 approximately 520 feet) could have been intended as descriptive rather than obligatory in nature.
Neither of these points is, I believe, particularly compelling. To begin with, one need not resort to artificial and pedantic distinctions between descriptive and obligatory language to resolve this case. Descriptive language is often used in an obligatory context. If one were to agree, for example, to build a house made of cedar, the word “cedar,” while descriptive, would function to describe an obligation. I doubt that the lawyer has been born who would defend the building of a pine house under such a contract by asserting the descriptive use of “cedar.”
Second, the word “approximately” in this context obviously means something like “about” 520 feet, or “around” 520 feet, or *346“520 feet more or less.” This language could include slightly more than 520 feet, but it could hardly refer to a linear figure that corresponds to a tremendously greater percentage of work, material, and cost. The majority says “approximately” could cover an additional 44 feet to the 520, a deviation, they assert, of less than 10 percent. But the contract was not to build a pencil thin line of pavement; it was to build an area of pavement measured in square feet. Because the 38 foot intersection in question has sides that fan outward from the width of the 526 feet of street to the point it joins the existing pavement of U.S. 54, the added square footage is in the neighborhood of over 15 percent more than that comprehended by the 520 feet to which the contract refers. And the cost of this additional 38 feet is much more than 10 percent — it is actually over 100 percent greater than the cost of Moffitt’s committed 526 feet. Here the deviation amounts to an additional $110,808 beyond the $98,-808 that Moffitt has already paid for the construction of the 526 feet of the new north-south street.
Third, the suggestion that the parties intended to include as part of the new street, the 38 feet of flared pavement solely within the right of way of U.S. Route 54 is inconsistent with common usage as well as basic real estate law. If, for example, the new street were privately owned, it would commence at the north right of way line of U.S. 54 and the intersection between it and Route 54 lying within the latter’s right of way clearly would not be owned by the owner of the new street regardless of who paid for its construction. Similarly, in the absence of any language in the agreement suggesting that the parties intended “street” to include the intersecting pavement lying entirely within the Route 54 right of way, it seems obvious to me that they understood the new “street” referred to the pavement commencing north of the Route 54 right of way and running north “approximately 520 feet” (526 feet to be exact) adjoining Moffitt’s property.
Moreover, the majority’s suggestion that “street north from U.S. Route 54 approximately 520 feet” might be read to include the enlarged intersection incorporating, among other things, a new third turn lane is almost fanciful. In support of this interpretation the majority argues that “a river includes its delta” ergo a street can include the flared portion of the intersection leading to it. I’m not clear as to the basis for the assertion that a delta is part of the river. It seems to me that it is equally arguable that the Mississippi delta, for example, is part of the Gulf of Mexico. More important, however, a delta, like an intersection, is commonly understood to be a separate and distinct entity. If the contract here had been for dredging approximately 520 feet of the Mississippi River, I doubt that anyone would be contending that it included dredging a portion of the delta.
One final point. The majority argued that there may be evidence that the parties, noticing that the shopping center ended roughly halfway up the proposed new street, decided that Moffitt would in effect be responsible for the lower (southern) half, including the intersection with U.S. Route 54, and the city for the upper half, including the intersection with Route 10. The pleadings and the undisputed evidence suggest no such thing. At the time the city filed its original complaint, it claimed that Moffitt owed one half the total cost of constructing the entire north-south street (over 1,000 feet), plus one half the cost of constructing the intersections on both U.S. 54 and Route 10. Later the city changed its mind claiming that the agreement did not require Moffitt to pay half the cost of the intersections on both highways; rather, Moffitt was required to pay none of the Route 10 intersection costs ($36,899), but all of the significantly more expensive U.S. 54 intersection costs ($110,801), plus again half the cost of the entire north-south street. At oral argument, as the majority points out, the city apparently again changed its position arguing that it just wants Moffitt to pay, in addition to the $98,808 he has already paid for the entire 526 feet of street adjoining his property, an undisclosed amount for the intersection of the new street with the northern edge of the pavement of Route 54, rather than from 38 feet farther north, including the widening of the intersection with Route 54 *347northward. This shifting of the city’s position shows that the city did not intend or contend at any time that it would be responsible for the north half and the north intersection of the new street and Moffitt for the south segment and the south intersection. Moffitt, on the other hand, has consistently understood the agreement to require him to pay for approximately 520 feet of street which he has done.
The city may well and understandably be unhappy at the total cost of the street and the intersections with Routes 10 and 54 and with the agreement that Moffitt would pay the full cost of constructing the approximately 520 feet of street adjoining his property while the city would pay for the “remaining portion of the street.” It’s obvious that the project became more expensive than originally anticipated with the inclusion of a third turning lane, etc., and the city’s “remaining portion” became much greater than expected. Hindsight, however, is no basis for attempting to rewrite an agreement which has turned out to be unfavorable to one party.
In sum, I find the contract between Moffitt and the city free from ambiguity. Because Moffitt has already performed his obligations under the contract, I would affirm the district court’s ruling.