Court Opinion

ID: 9576505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:25:19.388583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:12.069009
License: Public Domain

Gregory, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment but write to explain a different rationale which I would apply to this case. In my view the Per Curiam opinion judicially furnishes a savings clause which is lacking from the option itself. The parties did not overlook the matter of fixing a time for the performance of the option, they simply provided an indefinite time (90 days after Grantee is notified) which violates the rule against perpetuities because the notice might be received at a remote time and thus vesting occur beyond the period of the rule. The parties could have provided a savings clause with a maximum time for the receiving of notice to be within 21 years, but they did not. The Per Curiam opinion does it for them.
This court has in the past applied the rule against perpetuities to options in gross for the purchase of real estate. Turner v. Peacock, 153 Ga. 870 (113 SE 585) (1922); Brown v. Mathis, 201 Ga. 740, 745 (41 SE2d 137) (1947); Gearhart v. West Lumber Co., 212 Ga. 25 (90 SE2d 10) (1955); Smith v. Aggregate Supply Co., 214 Ga. 20, 22 (102 SE2d 539) (1958); Thomas v. Murrow, 245 Ga. 38 (262 SE2d 802) (1980). Recently we declined to apply the rule to leasehold options. St. Regis Paper Co. v. Brown, 247 Ga. 361 (276 SE2d 24) (1981). There we observed the questionable applicability of the rule to the commercial setting since it originated as a control of family land transfers limiting the right of certain generations in the family to alienate the land. The relevance of lives in being, 21 years, and the usual period of gestation to commercial transactions does not appear to me as it has failed to appear to the commentators. Chaffin, The Rule Against Perpetuities in Georgia, § 6.4, p. 119. I would consider *511the development of a doctrine to limit the duration of options compatible with the commercial settings in which they arise or alternatively await legislative action. 6 American Law of Property, § 24.56 (A. J. Casner ed. 1952). I would not apply the rule against per-petuities.
Decided March 11, 1986.
John M. McCarter, for appellant.
Perkins & Perkins, Clifford C. Perkins, Jr., for appellee.
This court invited the fiduciary section of the State Bar of Georgia to brief the question whether we should adopt the “wait-and-see” approach to the application of the rule against perpetuities discussed in Restatement of Property II, Donative Transfers, § 1.4 Comment A, p. 48. While the efforts and affirmative recommendation of the fiduciary section are appreciated, in my opinion we should wait for a case not involving a commercial option to carefully consider the considerable implications of the “wait-and-see” rule.
I am authorized to state that Justice Clarke and Justice Bell join in this special concurrence.