Court Opinion

ID: 9629314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:40:33.128569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:46.606998
License: Public Domain

BLACKBIRD, Justice
(dissenting);
I cannot concur in the Majority opinion’s partial reversal of the trial court’s judgment. I agree that the opinion is correct in affirming that court’s holding that defendant breached the parties’ contract.
It must be remembered that, when plaintiff instituted this action against defendant, he was a vendee under an executory contract of sale, who (as defendant’s answer alleged, and the trial court determined) had made a down payment of $2,000.00 under the contract, and, despite his breach of the contract in failing and refusing to pay defendant the rest of the contract price, was attempting, by this action, to compel defendant to return the down payment. In such a fact situation, plaintiff just had no cause of action for the recovery of it, as the trial court, in effect, adjudged — for there is no better established principle of law in this jurisdiction, and the majority of others, than the one expressed in the syllabus of Helm v. Rone (1914), 43 Okl. 137, 141 P. 678, as follows:
“Where a vendee pays money in part performance of an executory contract of sale and fails to perform it, he cannot recover of the vendor the money so paid.”
This principle has been consistently adhered to by this Court down through the years. See King v. Oakley, Okl., 434 P.2d 868, Diehl v. Welsh, Okl., 393 P.2d 834, and other Oklahoma cases cited in the annotation at 31 A.L.R.2d 8, 98. As to the rule, generally, notice 55 Am.Jur., “Vendor and Purchaser”, § 535, and 21 A.L.R.3d 1330.
In following plaintiff’s suggestion, by setting aside the trial court’s judgment, insofar as it denied him recovery of his down payment and remanding the case to the trial court with directions to conduct a new trial on the question of defendant’s damages, it appears to me that the Majority is probably embarking upon a futile endeavor. Defendant’s dismissal of his cross-petition seeking damages in the trial court can only be viewed as indicating that he does not want damages, or does not want to undertake proving them. As the record now stands, it would appear that all the defendant now wants to do is to keep plaintiff’s down payment. This, under the above quoted principle of law, he has a right to do, on the basis of the Majority’s affirmance of the trial court’s holding that plaintiff breached the parties’ contract in refusing to pay the balance of the store’s purchase price. I do not know how this Court, or any other court, can compel defendant to seek damages (at a directed partial new trial for that purpose) if he declines to do so. Under the cited principle, and the previous adjudication of the Majority and of the trial court, that plaintiff has breached the contract, it seems to me that defendant would be entitled to have his petition upheld and plaintiff denied recovery of his down payment — as the trial court has already done — simply by a demurrer to plaintiff’s claimed cause of action on the ground of res judicata (in this connection, notice the discussion in Parnacher v. Mount, Okl., 306 P.2d 302, 304) without pleading or introducing any proof of his damages.
Apropos of the subject under discussion, the Supreme Court of Colorado, in the case of Thach v. Durham, 120 Colo. 253, 208 P.2d 1159, 11 A.L.R.2d 690 (at page 1163 of the Pacific Reporter), quotes 2 Williston On Sales, 2d Ed., p. 1502, § 599, with reference to the principle of law, to which I have shown this Court and the *952majority of courts are committed, and continues as follows:
“Williston states, following the above quotation, that ‘the application of this principle may involve serious forfeiture, and the application of equitable principles should require, where this is clearly established, an accounting for the excess of what was received by the seller in excess of the damage which he suffered.’ However, in the only case cited as supporting such rule, the statement is pure dictum. Such a requirement would place on the seller willing to perform his contract the burden of establishing the amount of his damage, which might frequently be uncertain and impossible of accurate determination; it would require him to hold payments received on the purchase price available for refund in case the purchaser tired of his bargain; in brief, it would deprive the seller of the protection which it was the very purpose of the down payment to furnish; it would encourage the violation of contracts and promote litigation.” (Emphasis added)
In a frantic effort to escape the consequences of his own breach of the parties’ contract and to invoke this Court’s aid in recovering the down payment as a reward for his own wrong, plaintiff refers to the principle of law which denies him such reward (and the aid of the courts in obtaining it) as the “Land Contract Rule”, and suggests that it applies only to contracts for the sale of realty; and the Majority opinion notes that the Oklahoma cases it cites “deal with real estate transactions * * * In Ellinghouse v. Hansen Packing Co., 66 Mont. 444, 213 P. 1087, it was contended that the rule should not be applied to contracts for the sale of personal property in the same way as it is applied to contracts for the sale of real estate, but the Court stated: “ * * * there is not any merit in this contention”; and it proceeded to demonstrate the truth of that statement.
In launching into a discussion of cases such as Mid-Continent Life Ins. Co. v. Go-forth, 193 Okl. 314, 143 P.2d 154, J. I. Case Plowworks v. Stewart, 70 Okl. 210, 173 P. 1048, and Waggoner v. Johnston, Okl., 408 P.2d 761, involving contracts (“which impose”) prescribing penalties for their breach (or “non-performance”), and statutory provisions such as 15 O.S.1961, §§ 213, 214, and 215, without showing’ their relevance to the present case or its contract (which contained no such penalty provision), and without demonstrating how these cases and statutes constitute any obstacle to applying the well-settled principle denying one who has breached his contract the aid of the courts in seeking a return of his down payment, the Majority opinion seems to have followed plaintiff’s further suggestion that this principle is inconsistent with, and has been superseded by, those cases and statutes.
That the rule which the trial court (following all previous precedent in this jurisdiction) obviously applied in denying plaintiff recovery against defendant, has no relation to cases or statutes involving contracts with provisions for forfeiture, or liquidated damages, is shown by the following statement of the Court in Thach, supra:
“The rule as laid down by the decisions seems to exist independent of any provision in the contract for forfeiture or liquidated damages.” (Emphasis added)
If the rule was ever intended to be superseded by statutes such as Sections 213, 214, and 215, supra, all of which had their origin in the 1887 Dakota Laws, it is passingly strange that the courts of the two Dakotas have ignored them in deciding cases like the present one. See, for instance, the early case (1909) of Hendrickson v. Anderson (S.D.), 23 S.D. 78, 120 N.W. 765, wherein plaintiff was denied recovery of a down payment he had made on the contracted purchase of a store from the defendant, at a time when South Dakota had statutes identical with Sections 213, 214, and 215, supra. See Dakota Codes, 1887, and South Dakota Compiled Laws, 1967, Ann., Sections 53-9-4 and 53-9-5.
*953If this Court is not going to apply the above cited principle of law, with its salutary purposes and effects recognized in Thach and Ellinghouse, supra, and in the majority of other jurisdictions, then it should specifically (rather than by implication) overrule all of the previous cases I have referred to, but recognize the doctrine of stare decisis and totally (instead of partially) affirm the trial court’s judgment, rather than depriving defendant of the benefit of said judgment on the basis of a sudden and unanticipated change to the minority rule, retroactively applied. Justice compels that, when we change a rule of law, it should be done prospectively. We have recognized this in other cases. See, for instance, American-First Title & Trust Company v. Ewing, Okl., 403 P.2d 488, 496.
I think the trial court’s judgment should be affirmed en toto.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.