Court Opinion

ID: 9539660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:08:08.243839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:09.647112
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice
(concurring):
I join reluctantly in the opinion of the majority only because I see no legitimate way of avoiding the result.
The contract in question is a standard form agreement entitled “Earnest Money Receipt and Offer to Purchase.” This pre-*672printed contract was prepared under the auspices of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers. It is used by countless thousands each year in what is for most of them the largest financial transaction of their lives — the purchase of a home. The terms of an agreement so widely used among lay persons should be construed carefully by the courts to assure that they work in the fairest manner possible. In the present case, a serious flaw in the contract’s wording has come to light. If one party attempts to enforce the agreement, but the other party successfully defends by showing that the contract no longer is in force because of an accord and satisfaction or a rescission, the defendant cannot recover his attorney fees. Yet if the plaintiff is successful in his suit, he can recover his fees. This gives the plaintiff a monetary advantage in bargaining and in any suit.
Although the record is silent on the matter, there is no reason to believe that if the parties to the contract before us had considered the issue, they would have written it to produce the result reached by the Court. Similarly, I suspect that laymen who routinely enter into these standard form contracts with no legal advice assume that the attorney fee provision means that if any litigation arises out of the contract, the prevailing party will be awarded his attorney fees. This would not be an unreasonable assumption to one unfamiliar with the intricacies of the law. Yet I recognize that absent some other evidence of intent, the language of the contract, when read in light of the abstruse doctrines of accord and satisfaction or rescission, does require the result reached by the majority. And I can see no way for this Court to remedy the problem without doing undue violence to the legal doctrines involved.
I would prefer to join with the Chief Justice. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with him that the accord and satisfaction left the attorney fee provision in place. BLT Investment Co. v. Snow, Utah, 586 P.2d 456 (1978), seems to govern here.
The result reached by the Court today strikes me as unjust. However, the remedy lies with the draftsmen of such agreements, or with lawyers for parties using them, and not with this Court.