Court Opinion

ID: 9850073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:51:48.81836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:31.379285
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
dissenting:
I must disagree with the majority’s analysis of the June, 1972, agreement between these parties. The agreement itself is an ambiguous document,' and thus no clear intention of the parties can be gleaned from a reading of the document itself. The majority focuses upon language from one paragraph of one part of the agreement, which reads, “That the said described real property ... shall be considered and is hereby declared to be community property and to the extent necessary we do hereby transfer, grant and convey the described property to each other as community property,” concluding, as a matter of law, that the agreement transmuted the separate property into community property. Yet other parts of the agreement display another intent on the part of the parties in executing this agreement. The title of the document reads “Agreement as to Status of Community Property After Death of One of the Spouses.” (Emphasis added.) In addition, no mention is made of the language in the agreement which indicates that the parties intended the agreement only to take effect upon death, such as that portion of the agreement which states that the parties enter into this agreement with the intent and the desire that the real property named within the agreement “shall pass without delay and expense, upon the death of either, to the survivor.” Another part of the agreement indicates that “on the event of the death of either of the aforementioned parties, while the other party survives, the whole of said community property as herein defined and described shall immediately vest in the surviving party in fee simple.” Even that portion of the agreement focused upon by the majority is ambiguous in that, while the property is “hereby declared” to be community property and “hereby transfer[ed], grant[ed] and convey[ed],” at the same time the paragraph indicates that this will affect the property only “to the extent necessary.” It is by no means clear that as a matter of law the parties intended the agreement to have the effect of transmuting separate property of one of the spouses into community property. Such a large gift of property from one spouse to another should not be based upon an ambiguous document without first having the parties’ intentions determined as a matter of fact.
*664The obvious ambiguity in the agreement makes it imperative that the question of the intent of the parties in entering into the contract be determined as a matter of fact, based upon extrinsic evidence concerning all of the circumstances surrounding the execution of the agreement. At each level of this controversy’s course through the legal system, the agreement has been interpreted to be a transmutation as a matter of law, and a finding of the intent of the parties as a matter of fact has never been made. The magistrate, in his written findings, relied solely upon the language of the agreement in determining the status of the parties’ property.
“The written intentions and declarations of the parties are, in this case, the best evidence of the status of the parties’ property. By giving effect to those written declarations and intentions, the court must find the property described in the agreement to be community property.”
In a later supplemental finding of fact, the magistrate again relied solely on the agreement itself, and not upon any extrinsic evidence of the intent of the parties in declaring the property to be community property.
At the district court level, the district court first indicated the possibility that an oral or informal transmutation had occurred, but also noted that an opinion of the Idaho Court of Appeals had refused to recognize oral transmutations. However, the district court then ruled that, as a matter of law, “the 1972 agreement gave formal recognition to this situation by clearly stating that the two parcels in question were the community property of the parties.” The district court was deciding this not as a de novo court, but on appeal, as a matter of law.
Finally, on appeal to this Court, the majority again overlooks the ambiguities contained in the agreement and makes the statement that “where a contract is clear and unambiguous, determination of its meaning and legal effect are questions of law to be decided by the court.” Thus, the Court disregards the ambiguities contained within the agreement itself, even within the portion of the agreement relied upon by the majority. While the majority cites the correct rule of law as to unambiguous documents, it fails to recognize the equally weighty rule that where terms of a contract are ambiguous, its interpretation and meaning is a question of fact to be- determined by the trier of fact. See Pocatello Industrial Park v. Steel West, 101 Idaho 783, 621 P.2d 399 (1980); Werry v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 97 Idaho 130, 540 P.2d 792 (1975).
In a recent case we were faced with a very similar situation wherein we were interpreting a workman’s compensation agreement which had two sentences that seemingly conflicted with each other, and both sides were singling out the sentence that supported their position and urging this Court to rule in their favor based on their particular sentence, ignoring the sentence which supported the opposing side.1 See Woodvine v. Triangle Dairy Co., 106 Idaho 716, 682 P.2d 1263 (1984). In Wood-vine we determined that the compensation agreement was ambiguous and that we *665were “unable to determine the intent of the parties from a reading of the compensation agreement,” and thus ruled that “[w]hether the award was for permanent impairment or permanent disability is dependent on the actual agreement of the parties.” We then ruled that the question of what the parties agreed to was a question of fact for the trier of fact. Thus, we reversed the commission’s decision, which had been determined as a matter of law, and remanded to the commission to allow a determination of the actual agreement as a matter of fact.
In this ease there is no clear indication from a reading of the agreement itself of what the parties intended by executing this agreement. If the parties were told that execution of such an agreement would aid in avoiding the complications of probate, and thus entered into the agreement for the purpose of avoiding such conflicts, then the contract would not constitute a present transmutation of the separate property into community property. Instead, it would have been a contract specifically entered into pursuant to I.C. '§ 32-921, as urged by appellant. In addition, I.C. § 32-921 would have specifically governed the effect of divorce of the parties upon the agreement, because that statute specifically said that “[djivorce of the parties entered into an agreement hereunder shall revoke the agreement.” On the other hand, if the parties were aware that a majority of the property in question was the separate property of the husband, and by entering into this agreement they intended to make clear that they had agreed that all of this property would immediately be considered community property at the time they signed the agreement, then the agreement would be a transmutation and would be upheld upon that theory. Either interpretation, decided by the trier of fact as a matter of fact, when supported by substantial competent evidence, would have to be upheld upon appeal by this Court. However, such an interpretation of the agreement as a matter of fact has never been made to this point, and thus, based on our recent decision in Woodvine, I would reverse and remand this case to the magistrate’s court to allow for the taking of evidence on this point, and the determination by the magistrate as a matter of fact of the intent of the parties.

. In Woodvine the Court was interpreting a compensation agreement entered into between an employee-claimant and the employer for injuries which had been sustained in the course of the employment. The agreement, which had been approved by the Industrial Commission, provided in Part I for time loss paid; Part II provided, “The employee has been given a permanent disability and/or impairment rating of ____"; Part III provided for medical payments made to date. Finally, the agreement conclud.ed with the provision, "The employer and surety agree to pay, and the employee agrees to accept, the disability award as set forth above in periodic installments." The commission had construed the agreement, apparently as a matter of law, to be an agreement for a disability award, not merely an impairment rating. That holding was made against a statutory backdrop of our workmen’s compensation law which generally compensates only "disability” and not "impairment.” Nevertheless this Court held the agreement to be ambiguous and remanded the matter to the Industrial Commission to determine as a matter of fact, rather than as a matter of law, whether the parties had agreed to settle the claimant’s "disability” rather than merely the claimant’s "impairment.”