Court Opinion

ID: 9853311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:46:29.842103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:45.546461
License: Public Domain

Smith, J.
(concurring). The opinion of Mr. Justice Kelly cites the following from Goldberg v. Cities Service Oil Co., 275 Mich 199, 211:
“ 'Courts do not make contracts for parties, and this truism has given rise to the cautionary rule requiring clear and satisfactory evidence of a mutual mistake before reforming a written instrument. Back of nearly every written instrument lies a parol agreement, merged therein, but the writing controls unless a court of equity, on invocation of its power, .finds the writing does not express what the minds of the parties met on, and intended, and supposed they had expressed, but which miscarried by mutual mistake.’ Lee State Bank v. McElheny, 227 Mich 322, 327.”
*172Since no question of unilateral mistake is raised in this case (see Denton v. Utley, 350 Mich 332) the foregoing quotation may be taken as an accurate expression of the principles governing our decision in the case before us.
The chancellor, it is seen, demands “clear and satisfactory” evidence of mutual mistake.
I cannot conceive of clearer and more satisfactory evidence that a mistake was made in a lease than to have both the lessor and lessee tell us so.
This phase of the controversy turned upon whether a certain option could be exercised during the term of the lease or only at the expiration thereof. The lessor, Grace E. Burge, testified:
“Q. Did you have any question about it at that time ?
“A. Yes, I did. I questioned the part in there about the option.
“Q. Who answered your questions?
“A. Both Mr. Urick and Mr. Pearson answered the question.
“Q. What was the answer?
“A. The option, if I wanted to sell it at the end of 10-years time, he would have the first chance to buy it.”
The lessee was a partnership. One of the partners did not testify. The other (he was the one who did the negotiating of the lease, “I carried on in behalf of the partnership in negotiating with Mrs. Burge”) testified:
“My understanding of the lease was that after the determination of the lease, if she wanted to sell the lot, if we could buy the lot minus the buildings for $2,000, or be given the first opportunity to buy it.”
Both parties, then, agree to their intent that the purchase option was to be exercised at the expiration of the lease. Understandably enough, the trial chancellor so held.
*173Now, upon what conceivable ground can we in this Court, who saw nothing of the witnesses and their demeanor, who heard nothing of their testimony, with its affirmations and its possible evasions, overrule the trial chancellor ¶
I can find none, consistent with our exercise of our proper appellate function. We noted in Friedt v. City of Detroit, 343 Mich 610, dissent 623, that we cannot be both a court of review and a trial court (or commission or agency). True, we hear chancery cases de novo, but a proper respect for the wisdom and responsibilities of the trial chancellor, as well' as a wholesome realization that even appellate judges, may err, particularly in divining the truth of testimony from the printed page, long ago caused us to declare, through Christiancy, J., (Green v. Langdon, 28 Mich 221, 225) that:
“Upon all of these questions the testimony is very conflicting, and judging of it only as it appears upon paper, it would seem upon some of these questions to be nearly equally balanced; though we think, upon the whole, after a careful examination, there is a slight preponderance in favor of the case as claimed by the defendants. We are quite satisfied of the competency of Dillon, and of his deliberate purpose not to allow his property to go to his children; and we are inclined to the belief, from the evidence, that the indorsements upon the mortgage were made at his suggestion, by his direction, and in his presence, for the purpose already stated. Upon this point especially the credit to be given to the conflicting testimony would depend greatly upon the appearance, manner and deportment of the witnesses, in giving their testimony. Of these means of estimating the weight due to the evidence of the respective witnesses we are deprived. And as all the evidence was given in open court, in the county in which the witnesses and the judge resided, w.e think it right to say that his finding is entitled to much weight, *174and ought not to he overruled, where the evidence appears to us to be so nearly balanced.”
Appellant’s brief iterates and reiterates that the parties read the lease before they signed it, and Mr. Justice Kelly notes that Mrs. Burge “admits she read the lease.” So what? If reading a written instrument (which both parties thereto admit did not express their intention) precludes reformation thereof on the ground of mutual mistake, then we wipe out hundreds of years of equity and elevate the scrivener to the ermine. We will take no part in this retreat to the primitive law, so well described by Professor Andreas Heusler in his Institutions of Germanic Private Law, 1, 60 (quoted in 9 Wigmore’s Treatise on Evidence [3d ed], § 2405, p 12):
“ ‘A strictly formal system of law knows no contrast between the will and the utterance, and no possibility of a contradiction between the two. This is thoroughly the conception of the Germanic law. The utterance is the law’s embodiment. No more, and yet no less, than what is uttered can bind or loose. Hence the minute precision with which obligations of debt were written out. * * * Hence the legal proverbs, “one man one word,” “the word stands,” “words make the bargain,” and the like. A necessary result is that mistake in contractual relations receives but scanty considerations. * * '* All that a man does is judged alone by its external manifestations and its objective effect, not by his inward motive. The law concedes nothing either to good or to bad faith, as long as it is concerned with the legal consequences of conduct.’ ”
We do not dispute the seductive simplicities of this doctrine. At one stroke we remove from the law all the vexing and confounding questions about what goes on in the mind of man. Who cares ? There stands the scroll.
*175But it has never been doubted, from the very beginnings of what we know as equity, that the chancellor does indeed concern himself with the intent of people. Specifically, as to the situation confronting us, that he will amend an instrument to represent the actual agreement of the parties, regardless of the content of the parchment. Thus the case of Baker v. Paine, 1 Ves Sen 456 (27 Eng Rep 1140), comes to us from the year 1750. It involved a sale of goods, with certain deductions of charges to be made. The plaintiff asserted that “it appeared by the minutes and the calculations made by themselves at the time, that this was contrary to the intent, and a mistake by the drawer.” Defendant (who admitted the mistake) objected to parol evidence on the ground that it would “defeat written acts.” The Lord Chancellor, however, held otherwise, saying (p 459), “Then I am of opinion these minutes must be taken to be the agreement of the parties; and if any material variation (as is admitted for defendant) the articles must be rectified.”
Here, too, the articles should be rectified upon the proofs made, despite the writing and the parties’ reading thereof. “Neither party,” in the words of Mr. Justice Holmes, “has purported or been understood to express assent to the conveyance as it stands.” (Goode v. Riley, 153 Mass 585, 587 [28 NE 228].) The case, however, was not concluded in the court below. I therefore concur with Mr. Justice Kelly, for reasons stated by him in the balance of his opinion, that the case be remanded for the taking of proofs and the determination of the remaining issues involved in the case in accordance with this opinion.
No costs, neither party having fully prevailed.
Dethmers, C. J., and Edwards, Yoelker, and Black, JJ., concurred with Smith, J.