Court Opinion

ID: 9551038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:46:55.165189+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:56.081006
License: Public Domain

SLOAN, J.,
dissenting.
It is the duty of the court, not the legislature, to construe contracts. Because the decisions in two of our recent eases were admittedly wrong and the earlier cases present a pattern of confusion is no reason to now abdicate our duty. Anyone who has studied the former decisions would be ill-advised to prepare contracts in reliance thereon. The majority opinion cites the cases where the court has held that fees were payable on appeal and fixed the amount thereof. And because the majority now more pointedly cry for help is no reason to believe that the legislature is more likely to relieve us of previous error than has been true in the past. The court’s attempt in Landgraver v. Emanuel Lutheran, 1955, 203 Or 489, 494, 280 P2d 301, to shift a similar burden to the legislature was futile and eventually it became necessary for the court to rectify its own errors. Hungerford v. Portland Sanitarium & Benev. Ass’n., 1963, 235 Or 412, 384 P2d 1009.
*397Although the present case does not involve an issue as significant as that of charitable immunity, it is no less a matter for this court to face and decide. The direct effect of the refusal to allow fees is to deprive the owner of the contract of the full amount of the debt that is due. As in Beardsley v. Hill, 1959, 219 Or 440, 348 P2d 58, the confusing pattern of prior decisions should be erased and attorney’s fees should be allowed.