Court Opinion

ID: 9592171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:11:09.813467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:24.869807
License: Public Domain

LUSK, J.,
dissenting.
Some of the courts and some of the legal writers do not like the statute of frauds. They think it has outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any. See, for example, Corbin, The Uniform Commercial Code— Sales; Should It be Enacted?, 59 Yale L. J. 821, 829; Fox, Equitable Estoppel and the Statute of Frauds in California, 53 Calif. L. Rev. 590, 591-593. See, contra, Llewellyn, What Price Contract? — An Essay *135in Perspective, 40 Yale L. J. 704, 746-748. Whatever merits these strictures on the statute of frauds may have, it is nonetheless the valid expression of legislative policy in Oregon and it is the duty of the courts to enforce it and not, by the course of judicial decision, to subject it to a gradual process of erosion.
While it may be to the advantage of the defendant in this case to pay the broker’s commission in annual installments of $800, rather than in cash, the mere loss of that privilege does not take the case out of the statute. So to hold would be to annul the statute: Bennett v. Harrison, 115 Minn 342, 348, 132 NW 309, 311, 37 LRA NS 521; Crosby v. Strahan’s Estate, 78 Wyo 302, 314-316, 324 P2d 492; 3 Williston on Contracts (3d ed) 805-810, § 533A. As the court said in Glass v. Hulbert, 102 Mass 24, 35, 3 Am Rep 418 (quoted with approval in Seymour v. Oelrichs, 156 Cal 782, 794-795, 106 P 88, 134 Am St Rep 154):
“The fraud most commonly treated as taking an agreement out of the statute of frauds is that which consists in setting up the statute against its enforcement, after the other party has been induced to make expenditures, or a change of situation in regard to the subject-matter of the agreement, or upon the supposition that it was to be carried into execution, and the assumption of rights thereby to be acquired; so that the refusal to complete the execution of the agreement is not merely a denial of rights which it was intended to confer, but the infliction of an unjust and unconscientious injury and loss. In such case, the party is held, by force of his acts or silent acquiescence, which have misled the other to his harm, to be estopped from setting up the statute of frauds.”
As elsewhere stated, the party asserting-the estoppel must have been induced “to change his position, so *136that he will be pecuniarily prejudiced”: Swain v. Seamens, 76 US 254, 274, 19 L Ed 554; Everley v. Equitable Surety Company, 190 Ind 274, 280, 130 NE 227. The Oregon cases involving the question are decided in accordance with the foregoing principles: Rogers v. Maloney, 85 Or 61, 165 P 357; Scott v. Hubbard, 67 Or 498, 136 P 653; Kingsley v. Kressly, 60 Or 167, 111 P 385, 118 P 678, Ann Cas 1913E 746; Neppach v. Or. & Cal. R. R. Co., 46 Or 374, 80 P 482. In all these cases it appeared that the party relying on the oral agreement would have suffered the forfeiture of rights under a written contract if the plea of the statute of frauds had been sustained. There would have been a real, not a fancied, injury; and in no case that I have seen, decided by this or any other court, has an estoppel been found unless the change of position of the party asserting it has been accompanied by substantial pecuniary loss.
In this case the listing agreement provided that the defendant would pay to the plaintiff as a commission 10 per cent of the selling price of defendant’s ranch, together with the farming implements and livestock, when a purchaser should be provided through the plaintiff at the stated price and terms, or at any other price and terms acceptable to the defendant. The stated price and terms were $57,000 with a down payment of $24,000, and the balance payable in annual installments of $3,500 with interest at six per cent per annum. Defendant sold the property for $55,000, of which $12,000 was paid down, the balance to be paid in annual installments of $4,000, each, with interest at the rate of six per cent per annum. The contract also provided that defendant could keep the calves on the property.
The “change of position” asserted by the defend*137ant in Ms brief is that he sold his property for less than he “asked” and for a down payment less than he “asked.” This is all that he can claim, though it should be added that he improved his position with respect to the annual payments, and he kept the calves. In my view, this is not the sort of unconscionable loss and injury which the law demands for the creation of an estoppel. It is not an uncommon thing for owners of real property to reduce the asking price in order to make a sale. The defendant had no contract for the sale of his ranch, the benefits of which he lost because of reliance on the oral agreement. There is no evidence that the property was worth more than the price for which he sold it. There is no evidence that he would ever have gotten a better price or a larger down payment, or that he suffered any loss or hardship, such, for example, as inability to meet his obligations, because of the reduction in the amount of the down payment. In these circumstances the defendant’s testimony that he would not have accepted the offer but for the oral agreement becomes immaterial.
I would reverse the judgment.