Court Opinion

ID: 9557958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:01:05.6344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:58.849914
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice
(dissenting):
It was the defendant who selected its salesman and entrusted him with- the responsibility of procuring the plaintiff to sign the buyer’s order, and he signed it himself, upon a representation to the plaintiff that he had a contract to purchase the truck.1 In subsequent conferences about changes in price, similar representations were made to the plaintiff from October 25, 1973 until December of 1974, under the assumption that there was a binding contract. It was not until the impasse and disagreement occurred that the defendant then sprung the defense that the contract had not been accepted by an authorized company officer. It is a sound principle of law that one who claims a right to repudiate a contract must act with reasonable promptness or be deemed to waive that right. See Scott v. Walton, 32 Or. 460, 52 P. 180 (1898) where it is stated that a party “cannot retain the fruits of the contract awaiting future development to determine whether it will be more profitable for him to affirm or disaffirm it.” And see statement in Farrington v. Granite State Fire Ins. Co., 120 Utah 109, 119, 232 P.2d 754, 758 (1951).
It is repugnant to my sense of justice to permit the defendant to thus delude the plaintiff and keep him committed on a contract for all those months, then when the showdown comes, spring the proposition that the defendant was never bound anyway. I would reverse the judgment.
MAUGHAN, J., concurs in the dissent-' ing opinion of CROCKETT, J.
ELLETT, J., having disqualified himself, did not participate herein.

. Where loss must fall on one of two parties, it should be borne by the one who chose the party who created the circumstances out of which the loss arose. See Harrison v. Auto Securities Co., 70 Utah 11, 257 P. 677; Lake Creek Irrigation Co. v. Clyde, 22 Utah 2d 222, 451 P.2d 375.