Court Opinion

ID: 9792848
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:38:00.054371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:00:33.657825
License: Public Domain

Abbott, J.:
I dissent. I do not disagree with the law cited by the majority, but I would reach a result contrary to that reached by the majority.
The majority recognize the basic rules of law that the purpose of a penalty provision is to secure performance, and that when the parties call a contract clause a penalty provision, that fact should be given weight and accepted as controlling unless the facts and circumstances compel a contrary holding. The majority then observe that 39 other school districts have liquidated damage provisions in their contracts. They cite a North Dakota case that considered a liquidated damage clause, then concluded that what the parties here really meant was to provide for liquidated damages in lieu of performance, despite the parties’ use of the title PENALTY FOR BREAKING CONTRACT and their expressed purpose of securing performance of the contract. In addition, the school district made written demand on defendant for a penalty charge before releasing him from his contract.
The majority emphasize the fact that the parties are not lawyers *83and were not represented by counsel. Although not stated in their opinion, I must conclude they then decided that the parties intended to provide for liquidated damages in lieu of performance, but were incapable of expressing that intent by using plain English; or, if a lawyer had explained to them that a penalty provision is void as against public policy, they would have ended up negotiating a liquidated damage provision using the same sum for liquidated damages that they fixed as a penalty. The latter amounts to making a contract for the parties, something appellate courts are precluded from doing.
There are two reasons why I cannot accept placing a different construction on the words used to express what I consider to be a clearly stated purpose of what the parties to the contract intended as a penalty provision. First, as the majority note, the teachers are professionals who, along with the other party to this action (the school board), are charged with the responsibility of teaching our youth how to express themselves, both orally and in writing. The language the parties chose to use in that portion of the contract in dispute is simple, the stated purpose is clear and concise: “to make teachers as responsible for the compliance to their contracts as they will expect the [school board] to be.” A lawyer drawing up a penalty provision would have been hard put to express that intent any better than by using large, boldfaced type stating PENALTY FOR BREAKING CONTRACT and following it with the language used by the parties here. Admittedly, a lawyer could have expressed in clear terms the intent to provide for liquidated damages, but I suggest that to do so, very few of the words that the parties used in the caption and paragraph one of the contract would have been used.
Second, I am unwilling to accept two rules for interpreting contracts in Kansas; i.e., one wherein lawyers are involved, and one wherein they are not. Contracts should always be interpreted to determine the intent of the parties to the agreement; and when that intent is clear from the instrument, courts should not speculate as to what would have occurred had the parties known they could not do what they clearly expressed an intent to do. Although the parties could contract for liquidated damages pursuant to the rules set forth in the majority opinion, they did not do so, and I would reverse and remand with directions to enter judgment for the defendant.