Court Opinion

ID: 9669475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:57:03.409022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:57.009137
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
dissenting.
I would affirm summary judgment against the Delzers and so I respectfully dissent.
I disagree that Delzer I, in which we found ambiguity, is controlling. How can it be, when the record we examined in Delzer I did not include Mr. Delzer’s letter of October 30, 1979, which on its face, dispels any ambiguity about the terms of the parties’ November first credit agreement?
The question in Delzer I was how much money did the Bank agree to lend Delzer: $150,000.00 or $300,000.00? The Bank’s loan comments said $300,000.00, but the promissory note and final agreement indicated $150,000.00. Ambiguous? Yes! But if we had had Mr. Delzer’s unembell-ished admission that the deal struck between him and the Bank would:
“[GJenerate $336,000.00 over the next three years allowing us to operate completely on our own and also generate enough money to allow us to invest in cows later on with our own money should conditions justify it. The bank that we are doing business with is the State Bank of Burleigh County. The line of credit is for $150,000.00 with a projected peak of $133,000.00 in July of 1980 as indicated in the cash flow projection and a pay-off in October through December depending on marketing.” (Emphasis added.)
Would we have found any ambiguity? I wouldn’t have.
We decide ambiguity as a matter of law. In Delzer I, we were confronted with the conflict between the loan comments and the final credit agreement and promissory note. Delzer maintained that the Bank had agreed to a $300,000.00 loan commitment on or before October 15, 1979. Had we been privy to Delzer’s October 30, 1979 letter, which expressed his clear understanding of the terms of the agreement he in fact struck with the Bank after October 15, we would have had no doubt about the terms of the final agreement. Delzer himself made those clear beyond question.
Furthermore, even if I am the only one who would have decided Delzer I differently had Delzer’s letter been part of the record, I am still convinced that summary judgment should be affirmed. Litigation is not an inconsequential undertaking and it ought to be short-circuited when it is predictable that reasonable people could not disagree that the result of that litigation will favor the Bank. See Johnson v. PCA of Fargo, 345 N.W.2d 371 (N.D.1984). How can reasonable people overlook Del-*510zer’s unequivocal, unambiguous statement in his letter describing the agreement? I believe the evidence does not present sufficient disagreement to require it to go to a jury and even if it does, with the letter, it is so one-sided that the Bank must prevail as a matter of law. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Matter of Estate of Stanton, 472 N.W.2d 741, 747 (N.D.1991) (Levine, J., concurring).
Even the majority agrees that weighing credibility in the face of an admission against interest by the plaintiff is appropriate when the plaintiff tries to later change his story. See Guardian State Bank v. Humpherys, 762 P.2d 1084 (Utah 1988), and other cases cited by the majority. I agree with the trial court that this is precisely such a case.