Court Opinion

ID: 9549123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:13:41.924466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:53.058081
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Justice
(concurring and dissenting):
I concur in the opinion of the Court except in that portion which remands the case to the trial court to “determine whether the parties intended that the option be Jenkins’ capital contribution and if so ... establish the value of the option and credit Jenkins’ capital account for that amount” less, I suppose, the $20,000 advance that Jenkins has already received. As to that portion of the opinion, I dissent.
In the written agreement of the parties no mention is made of any amount Jenkins is to receive for his option other than the $20,000 then paid him. Yet he now claims that the option was worth $200,000 and seeks to have his capital account credited by the balance of $180,000. It is inconceivable that if that were the intent of the parties, they would not have fixed in their written agreement the value of the option and provided that Jenkins was entitled to payment or a capital credit of the unpaid amount. Certainly such a liability should have been couched in promissory terms and clearly expressed since it would have been one of the most important terms of the partnership agreement. It is unlikely that Jenkins, an experienced real estate broker, would have allowed a provision which he now claims is worth ten times to him what he received, to go unmentioned in the agreement. The parties carefully detailed what each was to receive. Jenkins was to be paid $20,000 for the option, to receive commissions on sales and leases he made and to receive 25% of the profits of the development after Petty recouped his expenses. The majority is unwarranted in clearing the way for an additional amount to be paid to Jenkins. Jenkins’ claim is wholly unsupported by the agreement.
It is further significant that the parties carefully detailed in the agreement that Petty would receive back his investment of $80,000 plus any other sums expended in connection with the property, along with interest at 8½%. Further, they fixed definitely when such payment to Petty would be made. If it was their intent that Jenkins should have been entitled to something more for his option, certainly that amount would also have been made payable at the same time as Petty’s or at some other specific time. The omission from the agreement of any provision for or terms of further payment to Jenkins is obvious and glaring. The majority now seeks to allow the agreement of the parties to be rewritten and perhaps allow further payment for Jenkins to be provided when the parties themselves neither agreed to it nor saw fit to mention it.
*885The majority carefully follows the written agreement of the parties in its denial of compensation to Jenkins for his services. It correctly notes that the agreement “does not contain a provision for payment to Jenkins for services rendered in obtaining a change in zoning to permit development.” With that conclusion I agree. However, the majority then turns away from the agreement and reaches out for an avenue through which Jenkins can possibly recover a much larger amount by way of capital contribution when that subject, too, is not mentioned in the agreement.
The majority opinion also errs in directing the trial court on remand to establish the value of the option. If it is the theory of the majority opinion that Jenkins may have contributed the option to the partnership, then the value of the option is immaterial since the parties could place any value upon it which they desired for the purposes of their partnership. Thus, under the majority’s theory, the inquiry on remand should not be: What was the value of the option? Instead, the inquiry should be: What did the parties agree was its value for the purposes of their partnership? In this case, however, such an inquiry will be futile since the parties did not agree on any value of the option and had no reason to be concerned about that subject because there was no agreement that Jenkins was to receive anything further than the $20,000.
STEWART, J., concurs in the concurring and dissenting opinion of HOWE, J.