Court Opinion

ID: 9547413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:47:10.758182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:43.789709
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
specially concurring.
As Justice Bakes correctly notes in his dissent, the Court's opinion extends the principle of the Funk case. In Funk, four members of the Court knowingly wrote *834new law in Idaho, and, in doing so, pointed out that the rule of Funk was decidedly a minority view, but tending otherwise.
Despite the continued criticism of Funk by Justice Bakes, on further reflection I am fully convinced that Funk continued Idaho jurisprudence in a good direction. As most practitioners know, when the parties to a lease or a contract have reached an attorney’s office, they have already agreed generally, and are the best of friends, or at least amicable. It is the unfortunate function of the attorney to cast some gloom on the affair by mentioning such things as default, forfeiture, lawsuits, assignability, and non-assignability. Ordinarily, when asked, they agree to assignability, and to a proper question, submit to the proposition that the lessor or seller should be asked to give his consent. This usually finds its way into the written agreement. What experience teaches practitioners, however, is that the amicable parties almost invariably assure each other that the requirement of consent will present no problem. This assurance seldom finds itself the agreement. Sometimes it does, and is couched in terms of consent being not unreasonably withheld. Our decision in Funk did no more than own up to reality.
There is nonetheless much to what Justice Bakes has written. We wrote new laws in Funk; Justice Bakes, in dissent in that case, did not suggest, as he does in this case, that our opinion is overruling prior case law. Today, in the view of Justice Bakes, we are not only making new, but overruling prior law, and he cites the 1960 Simplot case [J.R. Simplot Co. v. Chambers, 82 Idaho 104, 350 P.2d 211] in his opinion.1 In all likelihood the 1960 Simplot court would not have, in 1960, read into the contract (or the lease in Funk) the implication that consent to an assignment cannot be unreasonably withheld. Case law, however, is subject to change. Just six years prior to the Simplot case, the Court in Graves v. Cupic, 75 Idaho 451, 272 P.2d 1020 (1954), worked a drastic change in existing Idaho case law by declaring that forfeitures of land contracts would no longer be upheld in Idaho, unless based on a stipulation for liquidated damages which was not disproportionate. 75 Idaho at 456, 272 P.2d at 1023. That which is not disproportionate is reasonable. 75 Idaho at 459, 272 P.2d at 1025. Clearly, the Court, even in 1952, was not a court which was averse to change.
Today, as readily distinguishable from 1950, or from 1960, Idaho’s society has become far more transient. Many members of the work force are subject to new assignments and new locations, including some which are out-of-state. As I comprehend the situation, it is just as much a penalty to in 1984 refuse the right to assign a contract, or sell a property subject to mortgage, as it was a penalty in 1950 and forever prior thereto to strip a man of all equity in a property because he has fallen on hard times and failed to make monthly payments.2
Not mentioned in the Court’s opinion, but a salient factor is a finding by the trial court that the Jemmetts suffered unfortunate financial circumstances and found it imperative to move from Emmett, Idaho, to Oregon. It is inescapable that the trial court’s decision was supported by this Court’s Funk decision. Moreover, it is a furtherance of the equitable philosophies of this Court, beginning with Graves and continuing thereafter without interruption other than for the abberational Ellis v. Butterfield.
*835So viewing the opinion for the Court, I am nonetheless troubled at the award of attorney’s fees, both at the trial level and in this Court. Funk was non-existent when the contract was drawn between Cheney and the Jemmetts. Nor was it available when arose the change in the Jemmetts’ circumstances giving rise to this case. Nor was it available when the issues were framed by the pleadings. It was only on hand, and argued strongly to the trial court, at the time the written decision was being drafted.
It seems to my mind that an award of attorney’s fees to be paid by Cheney is not within the language of their contract — “In the event dispute arises between the parties hereto for interpretation or enforcement of this agreement, the prevailing party shall be entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.” While a dispute did arise, the resolution thereof did not hinge upon an interpretation of the parties’ agreement, although perhaps it might have. This Court has upheld the lower court’s determination on only one ground, that of reading into the agreement the implicit convenant of acting reasonably and in good faith. [The Jemmetts’ answer did allege, in language reminiscent of Graves: “To enforce specific performance under circumstances of this case would be unfair and unjust. The consequences would be harsh, inequitable, oppressive and unconscionable ____ The refusal of plaintiff to give consent herein is unreasonable and is motivated by the plaintiff’s desire to force a pay-off ....”]
Other than for Funk, however, the Court today might have followed along with Justice Bakes’ view that a contract is a contract, and the courts do not sit to write language into them which the parties failed to include. Where attorney’s fees are concerned, as per the agreement, I am hard-pressed to see that we are “interpreting” the agreement. Justice Bakes drives home very clearly that we are not doing so, and for that reason I am not comfortable in seeing Mr. Cheney penalized for attorney’s fees in proceedings below, or here. In the year 1977 it is surmisable that Mr. Cheney very well might have been the prevailing party.

. Accordingly, it seems to me that Justice Bakes correctly asserts that we should overrule Simplot, or distinguish it.

. In Ellis v. Butterfield, 98 Idaho 644, 570 P.2d 1334 (1977), Justice Bakes, garnering two additional votes, took the Court a giant step backward. Almost immediately after Ellis the Court in Thomas v. Klein, 99 Idaho 105, 577 P.2d 1153 (1978), reversed a district court forfeiture decree in favor of directing the equitable remedy of judicial sale — the remedy which in my Ellis dissent was declared to be appropriate in that case. Funk and now Cheney continue Graves, Thomas and a whole string of decisions abhorring penalties.