Court Opinion

ID: 9600444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:27:03.880614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:20.812366
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
specially concurring.
Generally I am able to agree with the Court’s opinion, but find a problem with its holding that “Red Lobster Inns was the principal and actual purchaser of the potatoes,” the problem being that the thrust of the Court’s opinion declines to consider the separate entities of the parties, and, in particular, that of Empire.
However, I am not averse to meeting head on the assertion by Red Lobster that it is protected by the Statute of Frauds, I.C. § 9-505(2), namely the requirement that the promise to answer for the default of another be in writing. It runs in my mind that a basic principle learned in first year contracts class in law school is that courts will not apply the provisions of the Statute of Frauds when to do so would work a fraud. Countless cases so hold and they are not needful of citation. The Red Lobster’s course of conduct in this case certainly makes that principle applicable, and it is on that basis, primarily, that I vote to affirm the judgment.