Court Opinion

ID: 9834214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:24:08.786318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:12.834237
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The principal contention urged by appellee in his motion for rehearing is, in effect, that, even though he elected to take back some of the assets which he had delivered to the defendants, yet he had the right to recover the agreed price of the assets which were not returned to him, and that such was the legal effect of the judgment recovered by him in allowing him damages for the difference between the agreed value of all the assets which he contracted to deliver and the market price of the assets returnee! to him.
As pointed out in opinion on original hearing, to sustain that contention would be, in effect, to say that appellee could elect to declare the contract rescinded and terminated as to that part which related to the assets that were returned to and received by him, and sue for damages for breach of the contract to pay for the assets not returned by the defendants, the value of which would be the invoice price thereof agreed to by the appellants. In the first place, to so hold would be to say that the contract was divisible into two separate and independent parts, in the absence of any pleading or evidence that such was the understanding of the parties. In the second place, such a holding would be contrary to the well-established rule that on the happening of a breach of a contract the party not at fault must elect between treating the contract as terminated, and treating it as still in effect; and that an election by him of one of those rights is a waiver of the other inconsistent right. And the rescission or termination by Erwin of the contract in part operated as a rescission of it in its entirety, for otherwise a recovery for the alleged breach would be for breach of a different contract from that agreed on by the parties. The agreed values of the articles not returned could not be given any effect except in a proper action to enforce the entire contract as made by the parties, and then only for the purpose of measuring plaintiff’s damages. The agreement of the defendants expressed in the original contract as to the values of such assets could not of itself, independently of other terms of the contract, furnish a basis of recovery for such agreed values.
In addition to authorities cited in original opinion, see 5 Page on Law of Contracts, §§ 2994, 2997, 3000, 3025, 3030, and 3038; also 2 Black on Rescission and Cancellation, § 583.
Those principles are applicable and controlling in this case whether the contract between the parties was one of sale by the ap-pellee of his assets to the defendant, and not a contract for exchange of properties, as stressed in his motion for rehearing, since they are applicable alike to either a contract of sale or one of exchange.
*1062It is further argued that at all events the judgment should be affirmed to the extent of $500, since one of the stipulations in the contract of sale was that Erwin should be paid a salary for his services in that sum. It conclusively appears from plaintiff’s pleadings and the evidence offered by him that the contract was entered into as an entirety, and that it did not embrace two separate and independent agreements, one of sale and one of employment of the plaintiff, Erwin, to perform services as a mechanic. Our conclusion with respect to plaintiff’s asserted right to recover the value of the assets turned over to the defendants by him and not returned are likewise’ applicable to this contention, which is accordingly overruled.
Motion for rehearing is overruled.